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RASSELAS, 
PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA. 



A TALE. 



BY DR. JOHNSON. 






STEREOTYPED BY T. H. CARTER & CO. BOSTON. 



Boston: 

PUBLISHED BY T. BEDLINGTON, 

KO. 81, WASHINGTON-STREET. 
1896. 









.At 



J. H.A.FROST, Printer. 



LIFE 



OF 



SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D. 






This eminent individual was born at Litchfield, in 
Staffordshire, 18th September 1709. His father was a 
bookseller in that town, and it was there that he re- 
ceived the early part of his education. He was sent 
to Oxford University, October 1727 ; but after being 
there a season or two, he was obliged, from poverty, 
to quit it without a degree. In 1732 he became usher 
to the school at Market-Bosworth, Leicestershire, but 
the tyranny of his patron made him soon give it up. 
He now commenced his literary career : his first work 
was a translation and abridgment of Lobo's Voyage to 
Abyssinia, for which he received five guineas. In the 
twenty-fifth year of his age, he married Mrs.Porter, a 
widow lady at Birmingham, then "in the forty-eighth 
year of her age, with whom he lived happily enough. 
She was possessed of some money, which enabled him 
to take a house for boarders near Litchfield ; but the 
speculation did not succeed. He then, March 1737, 
went to London with his pupil Garrick, to push their 
fortunes in that great metropolis. There he got em- 
ployment from the booksellers, and supplied the Gen- 
tlemen's Magazine with the Parliamentary debates ; — 
these were chiefly his own writing, and their eloquence 
was much admired : at that time, full and genuine 
Parliamentary reports were not allowed. In 1749 he 
brought out his tragedy, Irene ; he got £100 tfrom 
Dodsley for the copyright. In 1750 he commenced 
The Rambler : three days after its termination he lost 
his wife. In 1755 he published his Dictionary of the 



4 LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 

English Language — a work of Herculean labour, and 
which occupied him altogether nearly eight years ; 
the sum he agreed on with the booksellers for it was 
£1575. In 1758 he began The Idler, one paper for 
which he wrote and sent off by the post in one half 
hour. In 1759, in order to defray the expenses of his 
^mother's funeral, he wrote Rasselas, Prince of Abys- 
sinia, — -a beautiful, useful tale, and one of the most 
popular of his works : he composed it in the evenings 
of one week — sent it to the press in portions as it was 
written — and never read it again for several years. 
But it bears no marks of haste or incorrectness , on 
the contrary, it appears to the reader, and really is, a 
most finished performance. It has been translated into 
most of the languages of modern Europe. In 1762 
the King bestowed on Johnson a pension of £300 per 
annum. In October 1765 he published his edition of 
Shakspeare. In 1767 he had a personal interview 
with the King, of which his amusing friend and bio- 
grapher, Boswell, gives an interesting account. The 
King asked him if he was going to write any more ? 
he replied that he thought he had written enough : 
*\ I would have thought so too," quickly rejoined his 
Majesty, " had you not written so weW." In 1773 he 
made a tour to the Western Islands of Scotland, in 
company with his friend Boswell ; which formed an 
amusing and novel incident in his otherwise unvaried 
city life. In 1775 Johnson had the degree of Doctor of 
Laws conferred on him by the University of Oxford — 
a well-merited title. In 1781 he published his Lives of 
the Poets, the last of his literary undertakings. Dr. 
Johnson died 15th December 1783, in the seventy-fifth 
year of his age, after adding more than perhaps any 
single individual has ever done to the literature of his 
country. And it is no little praise, that, as well as 
having a highly intellectual character, all his writings 
tend to the benefit and the improvement of mankind. 

J. 



RASSELAS, 



CHAPTER I. 

Description of a Palace in a Valley. 

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fan- 
cy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope ; 
who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, 
and that the deficiencies of the present day will be sup- 
plied by the morrow ; attend to the history of Rasse- 
las, Prince of Abyssinia. 

Rasselas was the feurth son of the niighty emperor 
in whose dominions the Father of Waters begins his 
course ; whose bounty pours down the streams of plen- 
ty, and scatters over half the world the harvests of 
Egypt. 

According to the custom which has descended from 
age to age among the monarchs of the torrid zone, 
Rasselas was confined in a private palace, with the 
other sons and daughters of Abyssinian royalty, till the 
order of succession should call him to the throne. 

The place which the wisdom or policy of antiquity 
had destined for the residence of the Abyssinian prin- 
ces, was a spacious valley in the kingdom of Amhara, 
surrounded on every side by mountains, of which the 
summits overhang the middle part. The only passage 
by which it could be entered, was a cavern that passed 
under a rock, of which it has long been disputed, 
whether it was the work of nature or of human indus- 
try. The outlet of the cavern was concealed by a 



6 RASSELAS. 

thick wood, and the mouth, which opened into the val- 
ley, was closed with gates of iron, forged by the artifi- 
cers of ancient days, so massy that no man could, 
without the help of engines, open or shut them. 

From the mountains on every side, rivulets descend- 
ed that filled all the valley with verdure and fertility, 
and formed a lake in the middle inhabited by fish of 
every species, and frequented by every fowl whom 
nature has taught to dip the wing in water. This 
lake discharged its superfluities by a stream which en- 
tered a dark cleft of the mountain on the northern 
side, and fell with dreadful noise from precipice to 
precipice till it was heard no more. 

The sides of the mountains were covered with 
trees, the banks of the brooks were diversified with 
flowers ; every blast shook spices from the rocks, and 
every month dropped fruits upon the ground. All 
animals that bite the grass, or browse the shrub, whe- 
ther wild or tame, wandered in this extensive circuit, 
secured from beasts of prey by the mountains which 
confined them. Qn one part were flocks and herds 
feeding in the pastures, on another all the beasts of 
chase frisking in the lawns ; the sprightly kid was 
bounding on the rocks, the subtle monkey frolicking 
in the trees, and the solemn elephant reposing in the 
shade. All the diversities of the world were brought 
together, the blessings of nature were collected, and 
its evils extracted and excluded. 

The valley, wide and fruitful, supplied its inhabitants 
with the necessaries of life, and all delights and super- 
fluities were added at the annual visit which the em- 
peror paid his children, when the iron gate was opened 
to the sound of music ; and during eight days every 
one that resided in the valley was required to propose 
whatever might contribute to make seclusion pleasant, 
to fill up the vacancies of attention, and lessen the 
tediousness of time. Every desire was immediately 



RASSELAS. 7 

granted. All the artificers of pleasure were called to 
gladden the festivity ; the musicians exerted the 
power of harmony, and the dancers showed then- 
activity before the princes, in hope that they should 
pass their lives in this blissful captivity, to which 
those only were admitted whose performance was 
thought able to add novelty to luxury. Such was the 
appearance of security and delight which this retire- 
ment afforded, that they to whom it was new always 
desired that it might be perpetual ; and as those on 
whom the iron gate had once closed were never suf- 
fered to return, the effect of longer experience could 
not be known. Thus every year produced new 
schemes of delight, and new competitors for imprison- 
ment. 

The palace stood on an eminence raised about thirty 
paces above the surface of the lake. It was divided 
into many squares or courts, built with greater or less 
magnificence, according to the rank of those for whom 
they were designed. The roofs were turned into 
arches of massy stone, joined by a cement that grew 
harder by time, and the building stood from century 
to century, deriding the solstitial rains and equinoctial 
hurricanes, without need of reparation. 

This house, which was so large as to be fully known 
to none but some ancient officers who successively in- 
herited the secrets of the place, was built as if suspi- 
cion herself had dictated the plan. To every room 
there was an open and secret passage, every square 
had a communication with the rest, either from the 
upper stories by private galleries, or by subterranean 
passages from the lower apartments. Many of the 
columns had unsuspected cavities, in which a long 
race of monarchs had deposited their treasures : They 
then closed up the opening with marble, which was 
never to be removed but in the utmost exigencies of 
the kingdom ; and recorded their accumulations in a 



8 RASSELAS. 

book which was itself concealed in a tower not entered 
but by the emperor, attended by the prince who stood 
f next in succession. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Discontent of Rasselas in the Happy Valley. 

Here the sons and daughters of Abyssinia lived 
only to know the soft vicissitudes of pleasure and 
repose, attended by all that were skilful to delight, 
and gratified with whatever the senses can enjoy. 
They wandered in gardens of fragrance, and slept in 
the fortresses of security. Every art was practised to 
make them pleased with their own condition. The 
sages who instructed them, told them of nothing but 
the miseries of publick life, and described all beyond 
the mountains as regions of calamity, where discord 
was always raging, and where man preyed upon man. 

To heighten their opinion of their own felicity, 
they were daily entertained with songs, the subject of 
which was the happy valley. Their appetites were 
excited by frequent enumerations of different enjoy- 
ments, and revelry and merriment was the business 
of every hour from the dawn of morning to the close 
of even. 

These methods were generally successful : few of 
the princes had ever wished to enlarge their bounds, 
but passed their lives in full conviction that they had 
all within their reach that art or nature could bestow, 
and pitied those whom fate had excluded from this 
seat of tranquillity, as the sport of chance and the 
slaves of misery. 

Thus they rose in the morning and lay down at 
night, pleased with each other and with themselves, 
all but Rasselas, who in the twenty-sixth year of his 
ago. began to withdraw himself from their pastimes 



RASSELAS. 9 

and assemblies, and to delight in solitary walks and 
silent meditation. He often sat before tables covered 
with luxury, and forgot to taste the dainties that were 
placed before him ; he rose abruptly in the midst of 
the song, and hastily retired beyond the sound of 
musick. His attendants observed the change, and 
endeavoured to renew his love of pleasure. He neg- 
lected their officiousness, repulsed their invitations, 
and spent day after day on the banks of rivulets shel- 
tered with trees, where he sometimes listened to the 
birds in the branches, sometimes observed the fish 
playing in the stream, and anon cast his eyes upon the 
pastures and mountains filled with animals, of which 
some were biting the herbage, and some sleepiag 
among the bushes. 

This singularity of his humour made him much 
observed. One of the sages, in whose conversation 
he had formerly delighted, followed him secretly, in 
hope of discovering the cause of his disquiet. Ras- 
selas, who knew not that any one was near him, 
having for some time fixed his eyes upon the goats 
that were browsing among the rocks, began to com- 
pare their condition with his own. 

" What," said he, " makes the difference between 
man and all the rest of the animal creation ? Every 
beast that strays beside me has the same corporeal 
necessities with myself: he is hungry and crops the 
grass, he is thirsty and drinks the stream, his thirst 
and hunger are appeased, he is satisfied and sleeps ; 
he arises again and is hungry, he is again fed and is at 
rest. I am hungry and thirsty like him, but when 
thirst and hunger cease I am not at rest ; I am, like 
him, pained with want, but am not, like him, satisfied 
with fulness. The intermediate hours are tedious 
and gloomy ; I long again to be hungry, that I may 
again quicken my attention. The birds peck the ber- 
ries or the corn, and fly away to the groves, where 
they sit in seeming happinoBS among the branches, 



10 RASSELAS. 

and waste their lives in tuning one unvaried series of 
sounds. I likewise can call the lutanist and the 
singer, but the sounds that pleased me yesterday 
weary me to-day, and will grow yet more wearisome 
to-morrow. I can discover within me no power of 
perception which is not glutted with its proper plea- 
sure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man surely 
has some latent sense for which this place affords no 
gratification ; or he has some desires distinct from 
sense, which must be satisfied before he can be happy." 

After this he lifted up his head, and seeing the 
moon rising, walked towards the palace. As he pass- 
ed through the fields, and saw the animals around 
him ; " Ye," said he, " are happy, and need not envy 
me that walk thus among you burdened with myself; 
nor do I, ye gentle beings, envy your felicity ; for it 
is not the felicity of man. I have many distresses 
from which ye are free ; I fear pain when I do not 
feel it ; I sometimes shrink at evils recollected, and 
sometimes start at evils anticipated. Surely the equity 
of Providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with 
peculiar enjoyments." 

With observations like these the prince amused 
himself as he returned, uttering them with a plaintive 
voice, yet with a look that discovered him to feel 
some complacence in his own perspicacity, and to re- 
ceive some solace of the miseries of life, from con- 
sciousness of the delicacy with which he felt, and the 
eloquence with which he bewailed them. He mingled 
cheerfully in the diversions of the evening, and all 
rejoiced to find that his heart was lightened. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Wants of him that wants nothing. 
On the next day his old instructor, imagining that 
he had now made himself acquainted with his disease 



RASSELAS. 11 

of mind, was in hope of curing it by counsel, and 
officiously sought an opportunity of conference, which 
the prince, having long considered him as one whose 
intellects were exhausted, was not very willing to 
afford : " Why," said he, " does this man thus obtrude 
upon me *, shall I never be suffered to forget those 
lectures which pleased only while they were new, and 
to become new again must be forgotten ?" He then 
walked into the wood, and composed himself to his usual 
meditations ; when, before his thoughts had taken any 
settled form, he perceived his pursuer at his side, and 
was at first prompted by his impatience to go hastily 
away ; but, being unwilling to offend a man whom he 
had once reverenced and still loved, he invited him to 
sit down with him on the bank. 

The old man, thus encouraged, began to lament the 
change which had been lately observed in the prince, 
and to inquire why he so often retired from the plea- 
sures of the palace, to loneliness and silence. " I fly 
from pleasure," said the prince, " because pleasure 
has ceased to please ; I am lonely because I am miser- 
able, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the 
happiness of others." " You, sir," said the sage, " are 
the first who has complained of misery in the happy 
valley. I hope to convince you that your complaints 
have no real cause. You are here in full possession 
of all that the emperor of Abyssinia can bestow ; here 
is neither labour to be endured nor danger to be dread- 
ed, yet here is all that labour or danger can procure 
or purchase. Look round and tell me which of your 
wants is without supply : if you want nothing, how 
are you unhappy ?" 

'•' That I want nothing," said the prince, " or that I 
know not what I want, is the cause of my complaint : 
if I had any known want, I should have a certain wish ; 
that wish would excite endeavour, and I should not 
then repine to see the sun move so slowly towards the 
western mountain, or lament when the day breaks, 



12 RASSELAS. 

and sleep will no longer hide me from myself. When 
I see the kids and the lambs chasing one another, I 
fancy that I should be happy if I had something to 
pursue. But, possessing all that I can want, I find 
one day and one hour exactly like another, except 
that the latter is still more tedious than the former. 
Let your experience inform me how the day may now 
seem as short as in my childhood, while nature was 
yet fresh, and every moment showed me what I never 
had observed before. I have already enjoyed too 
much ; give me something to desire." 

The old man was surprised at this new species 
of affliction, and knew not what to reply, yet was un- 
willing to be silent. " Sir," said he, " if you had 
seen the miseries of the world, you would know how 
to value your present state." " Now," said the prince, 
" you have given me something to desire ; I shall long 
to see the miseries of the world, since the sight of 
them is necessary to happiness." 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Prince continues to grieve and muse. 

At this time the sound of music proclaimed the 
hour of repast, and the conversation was concluded. 
The old man went away sufficiently discontented, 
to find that his reasonings had produced the only 
conclusion which they were intended to prevent. But 
in the decline of life shame and grief are of short 
duration ; whether it be that we bear easily what we 
have borne long, or that, finding ourselves in age less 
regarded, we less regard others ; or that we look with 
slight regard upon afflictions to which we know that 
the hand of death is about to put an end. 

The prince, whose views were extended to a wider 
space, could not speedily quiet his emotions. He 



RASSELAS. 13 

had been before terrified at the length of life which 
nature promised him, because he considered that in a 
long time much must be endured ; he now rejoiced in 
his youth, because in many years much might be 
done. 

This first beam of hope that had been ever darted 
into his mind, rekindled youth in his cheeks, and 
doubled the lustre of his eyes. He was fired with 
the desire of doing something, though he knew not 
yet with distinctness either end or means. 

He was now no longer gloomy and unsocial ; but, con- 
sidering himself as master of a secret stock of hap- 
piness, which he could enjoy only by concealing it, he 
affected to be busy in all schemes of diversion, and 
endeavoured to make others pleased with the state of 
which he himself was weary. But pleasures never 
can be so multiplied or continued, as not to leave 
much of life unemployed ; there were many hours, 
both of the night and day, which he could spend with- 
out suspicion in solitary thought. The load of life was 
much lightened : he went eagerly into the assemblies, 
because he supposed the frequency of his presence 
necessary to the success of his purposes ; he retired 
gladly to privacy, because he had now a subject of 
thought. 

His chief amusement was to picture to himself 
that world which he had never seen ; to place himself 
in various conditions ; to be entangled hi imaginary 
difficulties, and to be engaged in wild adventures : but 
his benevolence always terminated his projects in the 
relief of distress, the detection of fraud, the defeat 
of oppression, and the diffusion of happiness. 

Thus passed twenty months of the life of Rasselas. 
He busied himself so intensely in visionary bustle, 
that he forgot his real solitude ; and, amidst hourly 
preparations for the various incidents of human affairs, 
neglected to consider by what means he should mingle 
with mankind. 

2 



14 RASSELAS. 

One day, as he was sitting on a bank, he feigned 
to himself an orphan virgin robbed of her little portion 
by a treacherous lover, and crying after him for 
restitution and redress. So strongly was the image 
impressed upon his mind, that he started up in the 
maid's defence, and ran forward to seize the plunderer 
with all the eagerness of real pursuit. Fear naturally 
quickens the flight of guilt. Rasselas could not catch 
the fugitive with his utmost efforts ; but resolving to 
weary, by perseverance, him whom he could not sur- 
pass in speed, he pressed on till the foot of the moun- 
tain stopped his course. 

Here he recollected himself, and smiled at his own 
useless impetuosity. Then raising his eyes to the 
mountain, " This," said he, " is the fatal obstacle that 
hinders at once the enjoyment of pleasure, and the 
exercise of virtue. How long is it that my hopes and 
wishes have flown beyond this boundary of my life, 
which yet I never have attempted to surmount \" 

Struck with this reflection, he sat down to muse ; 
and remembered, that since he first resolved to escape 
from his confinement, the sun had passed twice over 
him in his annual course. He now felt a degree of 
regret with which he had never been before acquaint- 
ed. He considered how much might have been done in 
the time which had passed, and left nothing real be- 
hind it. He compared twenty months with the life of 
man. " In life,'' said he, " is not to be counted the 
ignorance of infancy, or imbecility of age. We are 
long before we are able to think, and we soon cease 
from the power of acting. The true period of human 
existence may be reasonably estimated at forty years, 
of which I have mused away the four-and-twentieth 
part. What I have lost was certain, for I have cer- 
tainly possessed it ; but of twenty months to come 
who can assure me ?" 

The consciousness of his own folly pierced him 
deeply, and he was long before he could be reconciled 



RASSELAS. 15 

to himself. " The rest of my time,"' said he, " has 
been lost by the crime or folly of my ancestors, and 
the absurd institutions of my country ; I remember it 
with disgust, yet without remorse : but the months 
that have passed since new light darted into my soul, 
since I formed a scheme of reasonable felicity, have 
been squandered by my own fault. I have lost that 
which can never be restored ; I have seen the sun rise 
and set for twenty months, an idle gazer on the light 
of heaven. In this time the birds have left the nest 
of their mother, and committed themselves to the 
woods and to the skies ; the kid has forsaken the teat, 
and learned by degrees to climb the rocks in quest of 
independent sustenance : I only have made no ad- 
vances, but am still helpless and ignorant. The moon, 
by more than twenty changes, admonished me of the 
flux of life ; the stream that rolled before my feet up- 
braided my inactivity. I sat feasting on intellectual 
luxury, regardless alike of the examples of the earth, 
and the instructions of the planets. Twenty months 
are passed, who shall restore them ?" 

These sorrowful meditations fastened upon his 
mind ; he passed four months in resolving to lose no 
more time in idle resolves, and was awakened to more 
vigorous exertion, by hearing a maid, who had broken 
a porcelain cup, remark, that what cannot be repaired 
is not to be regretted. 

This was obvious ; and Rasselas reproached him- 
self that he had not discovered it, having not known, 
or not considered, how many useful hints are obtained 
by chance, and how often the mind, hurried by her 
own ardour to distant views, neglects the truths that 
lie open before her. He, for a few hours, regretted 
his regret, and from that time bent his whole mind 
upon the means of escaping from the valley of hap- 
piness. 



16 RASSELAS. 



CHAPTER V. 



The Prince meditates his Escape. 

He now found that it would be very difficult to 
effect that which it was very easy to suppose effected. 
When he looked round about him, he saw himself con- 
fined by the bars of nature, which had never yet been 
broken, and by the gate, through which none that once 
had passed it were ever able to return. He was now 
impatient as an eagle in a grate. He passed week 
after week in clambering the mountains, to see if 
there was any aperture which the bushes might 
conceal, but found all the summits inaccessible by 
their prominence. The iron gate he despaired to 
open ; for it was not only secured with all the power 
of art, but was always watched by successive sentinels, 
and was by its position exposed to the perpetual ob- 
servation of all the inhabitants. 

He then examined the cavern through which the 
waters of the lake were discharged ; and, looking 
down at a time when the sun shone strongly upon its 
mouth, he discovered it to be full of broken rocks, 
which, though they permitted the stream to flow 
through many narrow passages, would stop any body 
of solid bulk. He returned discouraged and dejected ; 
but having now known the blessing of hope, resolved 
never to despair. 

In these fruitless searches he spent ten months. 
The time, however, passed cheerfully away : in the 
morning he rose with new hope, in the evening ap- 
plauded his own diligence, and in the night slept 
sound after his fatigue. He met a thousand amuse- 
ments which beguiled his labour, and diversified his 
thoughts. He discerned the various instincts of ani- 
mals and properties of plants, and found the place re- 
plete with wonders, of which he purposed to solace 



RASSELAS. 17 

himself with the contemplation, if he should never be 
able to accomplish his flight ; rejoicing that his en- 
deavours, though yet unsuccessful, had supplied him 
with a source of inexhaustible inquiry. 

But his original curiosity was not yet abated ; he 
resolved to obtain some knowledge of the ways of 
men. His wish still continued, but his hope grew 
less. He ceased to survey any longer the walls of his 
prison, and spared to search by new toils for interstices 
which he knew could not be found, yet determined to 
keep his design always in view, and lay hold on any 
expedient that time should offer. 



CHAPTER VI. 

A Dissertation on the Art of Flying. 

Among the artists that had been allured into the 
happy valley, to labour for the accommodation and 
pleasure of its inhabitants, was a man eminent for 
his knowledge of the mechanick powers, who had con- 
trived many engines both of use and recreation. By 
a wheel, which the stream turned, he forced the water 
into a tower, whence it was distributed to all the 
apartments of the palace. He erected a pavilion in 
the garden, around which he kept the air always cool 
by artificial showers. One of the groves, appropriated 
to the ladies, was ventilated by fans, to which the 
rivulet that ran through it gave a constant motion ; 
and instruments of soft musick were placed at proper 
distances, of which some played by the impulse of 
the wind, and some by the power of the stream. 

This artist was sometimes visited by Rasselas, who 
was pleased with every kind of knowledge, imagining 
that the time would come When all his acquisitions 
should be of use to him in the open world. He came 
one dav to amuse himself in his usual manner, and found 



18 RASSELAS. 

the master busy in building a sailing chariot : he 
saw that the design was practicable upon a level sur- 
face, and with expressions of great esteem solicited its 
completion. The workman was pleased to find himself 
so much regarded by the prince, and resolved to gain 
yet higher honours. " Sir," said he, " you have seen 
but a small part of what the mechanick sciences can 
perform. I have been long of opinion, that instead of 
the tardy conveyance of ships and chariots, man might 
use the swifter migration of wings ; that the fields 
of air are open to knowledge, and that only ignorance 
and idleness need crawl upon the ground." 

This hint rekindled the prince's desire of passing the 
mountains : having seen what the mechanist had alrea- 
dy performed, he was willing to fancy that he could 
do more, yet resolved to inquire farther, before he suf- 
fered hope to afflict him by disappointment. " I am 
afraid," said he to the artist, " that your imagination 
prevails over your skill, and that you now tell me ra- 
ther what you wish than what you know. Every ani- 
mal has his element assigned him ; the birds have the 
air, and man and beasts the earth." " So," replied 
the mechanist, " fishes have the water, in which yet 
beasts can swim by nature, and men by art. He that 
can swim needs not despair to fly ; to swim is to fly 
in a grosser fluid, and to fly is to swim in a subtler. 
We are only to proportion our power of resistance to 
the different density of matter through which we are 
to pass. You will be necessarily upborne by the air, 
if you can renew any impulse upon it faster than the 
air can recede from the pressure." 

" But the exercise of swimming," said the prince, 
" is very laborious ; the strongest limbs are soon wea- 
ried : I am afraid the act of flying will be yet more 
violent, and wings will be of no great use, unless we 
can fly farther than we can swim." 

" The labour of rising from the ground," said the 
artist, " will be great, as we see it in the heaviei 



RASSELAS. 19 

domestick fowls, but as we mount higher, the earth'? 
attraction, and the body's gravity, will be gradually di- 
minished, till we shall arrive at a region where the man 
will float in the air without any tendency to fall : no 
care will then be necessary but to move forwards, which 
the gentlest impulse will effect. You, sir, whose curio- 
sity is so extensive, will easily conceive with what plea- 
sure a philosopher, furnished with wings, and hover- 
ing in the sky, would see the earth, and all its inhabit- 
ants, rolling beneath him, and presenting to him suc- 
cessively, by its diurnal motion, all the countries within 
the same parallel. How must it amuse the pendent 
spectator to see the moving scene of land and ocean, 
cities and deserts ! To survey with equal security the 
marts of trade and the fields of battle ; mountains 
infested by barbarians, and fruitful regions gladdened 
by plenty and lulled by peace ! How easily shall we 
then trace the Nile through all his passage ; pass over 
to distant regions, and examine the face of nature 
from one extremity of the earth to the other !" 

" All this," said the prince, " is much to be desired ; 
but I am afraid that no man will be able to breathe in 
these regions of speculation and tranquillity. I have 
been told that respiration is difficult upon lofty moun- 
tains, yet from these precipices, though so high as to 
produce great tenuity of air, it is very easy to fall : 
therefore I suspect, that from any height where life 
can be supported, there may be danger of too quick 
descent." 

" Nothing," replied the artist, " will ever be attempt- 
ed, if all possible objections must be first overcome. 
If you will favour my project, I will try the first flight 
at my own hazard. I have considered the structure 
of all volant animals, and find the folding continuity 
of the bat's wings most easily accommodated to the 
human form. Upon this model I shall begin my task 
to-morrow, and in a year expect to tower into the air 
beyond the malice and pursuit of man. But I will 



20 RASSELAS. 

work only on this condition, that the art shall not be 
divulged, and that you shall not require me to make 
wings for any but ourselves." 

" Why," said Rasselas, " should you envy others so 
great an advantage ? All skill ought to be exerted for 
universal good ; every man has owed much to others, 
and ought to repay the kindness that he has received." 

" If men were all virtuous," returned the artist, " I 
should with great alacrity teach them all to fly. But 
what would be the security of the good, if the bad 
could at pleasure invade them from the sky ? Against 
an army sailing through the clouds, neither walls, nor 
mountains, nor seas could afford any security. A 
flight of northern savages might hover in the wind, 
and light at once with irresistible violence upon the 
capital of a fruitful region that was rolling under them. 
Even this valley, the retreat of princes, the abode of 
happiness, might be violated by the sudden descent of 
some of the naked nations that swarm on the coast of 
the Southern Sea." 

The prince promised secrecy, and waited for the 
performance, not wholly hopeless of success. He visit- 
ed the work from time to time, observed its progress, 
and remarked many ingenious contrivances to facili- 
tate motion, and unite levity with strength. The art- 
ist was every day more certain that he should leave 
vultures and eagles behind him, and the contagion of 
his confidence seized upon the prince. 

In a year the wings were finished, and, on a morn- 
ing appointed, the maker appeared furnished for flight 
on a little promontory : he waved his pinions awhile 
to gather air, then leaped from his stand, and in an in- 
stant dropped into the lake. His wings, which were of 
no use in the air, sustained him in the water, and the 
prince drew him to land, half dead with terrour and 
vexation. 



RASSELAS. 21 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Prince finds a Man of Learning. 

The prince was not much afflicted by this disaster, 
having suffered himself to hope for a happier event, 
only because he had no other means of escape in view. 
He still persisted in his design to leave the happy val- 
ley by the first opportunity. 

His imagination was now at a stand ; he had no 
prospect of entering into the world ; and, notwith- 
standing all his endeavours to support himself, discon- 
tent by degrees preyed upon him, and he began again 
to lose his thoughts in sadness, when the rainy season, 
which in these countries is periodical, made it incon- 
venient to wander in the woods. 

The rain continued longer and with more violence 
than had been ever known ; the clouds broke on the 
surrounding mountains, and the torrents streamed into 
the plain on every side, till the cavern was too narrow 
to discharge the water. The lake overflowed its banks, 
and all the level of the valley was covered with the 
inundation. The eminence on which the palace was 
built, and some other spots of rising ground, were all 
that the eye could now discover. The herds and flocks 
left the pastures, and both the wild beasts and the 
tame retreated to the mountains. 

This inundation confined all the princes to domes- 
tick amusements, and the attention of Rasselas was 
particularly seized by a poem, which Imlac rehearsed, 
upon the various conditions of humanity. He com- 
manded the poet to attend him in his apartment, and 
recite his verses a second time ; then entering into 
familiar talk, he thought himself happy in having 
found a man who knew the world so well, and could 
bo skilfully paint the scenes of life. He asked a thou- 
sand questions about things, to which, though common 



22 RASSELAS 

to all other mortals, his confinement from childhoo* 
had kept him a stranger. The poet pitied his igno- 
rance, and loved his curiosit)', and entertained him 
from day to day with novelty and instruction, so that 
the prince regretted the necessity of sleep, and longed 
till the morning should renew his pleasure. 

As they were sitting together, the prince command- 
ed Imlac to relate his history, and to tell by what ac- 
cident he was forced, or by what motive induced, to 
close his life in the happy valley. As he was going 
to begin his narrative, Rasselas was called to a concert, 
and obliged to restrain his curiosity till the evening. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The History of Imlac. 

The close of the day is, in the regions of the torrid 
zone, the only season of diversion and entertainment, 
and it was therefore midnight before the musick ceased, 
and the princesses retired. Rasselas then called for his 
companion, and required him to begin the story of his 
life. 

" Sir," said Imlac, " my history will not be long : 
the life that is devoted to knowledge passes silently 
away, and is very little diversified by events. To talk 
in publick, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to 
inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of a 
scholar : He wanders about the world without pomp or 
terrour, and is neither known nor valued but by men 
like himself. 

" I was born in the kingdom of Goiama, at no great 
distance from the fountain of the Nile. My father was 
a wealthy merchant, who traded between the inland 
countries of Afric and the ports of the Red Sea. He 
was honest, frugal, and diligent, but of mean senti- 
ments and narrow comprehension : he desired only to 



RASSELAS. 23 

be rich, and to conceal his riches, lest he should be 
spoiled by the governours of the province." 

" Surely," said the prince, " my father must be neg- 
ligent of his charge, if any man in his dominions dares 
take that which belongs to another. Does he not know, 
that kings are accountable for injustice permitted as 
well as done ? If I were emperor, not the meanest of 
my subjects should be oppressed with impunity. My 
blood boils when I am told that a merchant durst not 
enjoy his honest gains for fear of losing them by the 
rapacity of power. Name the governour who robbed 
the people, that I may declare his crimes to the empe- 
ror." 

" Sir," said Imlac, " your ardour is the natural effect 
of virtue animated by youth : the time will come when 
you will acquit your father, and perhaps hear with 
less impatience of the governour. Oppression is, in the 
Abyssinian dominions, neither frequent nor tolerated ; 
but no form of government has been yet discovered, 
by which cruelty can be wholly prevented. Subordi- 
nation supposes power on one part and subjection on 
the other ; and if power be in the hands of men, it will 
sometimes be abused. The vigilance of the supreme 
magistrate may do much, but much will still remain 
undone. He can never know all the crimes that are 
committed, and can seldom punish all that he knows." 

" This," said the prince, " I do not understand, but 
I had rather hear thee than dispute. Continue thy 
narration." 

" My father," proceeded Imlac, u originally intended 
that I should have no other education than such as 
might qualify me for commerce ; and discovering in 
me great strength of memory and quickness of appre- 
hension, often declared his hope that I should be some 
time the richest man in Abyssinia." 

" Why," said the prince, " did thy fathor desire the 
increase of his wealth, when it was already greater 
than he durst discover or enjoy ? I am unwilling to 



24 RASSEL.AS. 

doubt thy veracity, yet inconsistencies cannot b6th be 

true." 

" Inconsistencies," answered Imlac, " cannot both 
be right, but, imputed to man, they may both be true. 
Yet diversity is not inconsistency : My father might 
expect a time of greater security. However, some 
desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he, 
whose real wants are supplied, must admit those of 
fancy." 

" This," said the prince, " I can in some measure 
conceive. I repent that I interrupted thee." 

" With this hope," proceeded Imlac, " he sent me to 
school ; but when I had once found the delight of 
knowledge, and felt the pleasure of intelligence and 
the pride of invention, I began silently to despise 
riches, and determined to disappoint the purpose of my 
father, whose grossness of conception raised my pity. 
I was twenty years old before his tenderness would 
expose me to the fatigue of travel, in which time I 
had been instructed by successive masters, in all the 
literature of my native country. As every hour 
taught me something new, I lived in a continual course 
of gratifications ; but, as I advanced towards manhood, 
I lost much of the reverence with which I had been 
used to look on my instructers ; because, when the 
lesson was ended, I did not find them wiser or better 
than common men. 

" At length my father resolved to initiate me in 
commerce, and opening one of his subterranean trea- 
suries, counted out ten thousand pieces of gold. This, 
young man, said he, is the stock with which you must 
negotiate. I began with less than the fifth part, and 
you see how diligence and parsimony have increased 
it. This is your own, to waste or to improve. If 
you squander it by negligence or caprice, you must 
wait for my death before you will be rich : if, in four 
years you double your stock, we will thenceforward 
let subordination cease, and live together as friends 



RASSELAS. 25 

and partners ; for he shall always be equal with me, 
who is equally skilled in the art of growing rich. 

" We laid our money upon camels, concealed in 
bales of cheap goods, and travelled to the shore of the 
Red Sea. When I cast my eye on the expanse of 
waters, my heart bounded like that of a prisoner 
escaped. I felt an unextinguishable curiosity kindle 
in my mind, and resolved to snatch this opportunity 
of seeing the manners of other nations, and of learn- 
ing sciences unknown in Abyssinia. 

" I remembered that my father had obliged me to 
the improvement of my stock, not by a promise which 
I ought not to violate, but by a penalty which I was at 
liberty to incur ; and therefore determined to gratify 
my predominant desire, and, by drinking at the foun- 
tains of knowledge, to quench the thirst of curiosity. 

" As I was supposed to trade without connexion 
with my father, it was easy for me to become ac- 
quainted with the master of a ship, and procure a 
passage to some other country. I had no motives 
of choice to regulate my voyage ; it was sufficient for 
me, that, wherever I wandered, I should see a country 
which I had not seen before. I therefore entered a 
ship bound for Surat, having left a letter for my father, 
declaring my intention." 



CHAPTER IX. 

The History of Imlac continued. 
11 When I first entered upon the world of waters, 
and lost sight of land, I looked round about me with 
pleasing terrour, and thinking my soul enlarged by the 
boundless prospect, imagined that I could gaze round 
for ever without satiety ; but, in a short time, I grew 
weary of looking on barren uniformity, where I could 
only see again what I had already seen. I then de- 
3 



2f> RASSELAS. 

sccnded into the ship, and doubted for a while whe- 
ther all my future pleasures would not end like this, 
in disgust and disappointment. Yet, surely, said I, the 
ocean and the land are very different ; the only variety 
of water is rest and motion, but the earth has moun- 
tains and valleys, deserts and cities : it is inhabited by 
men of different customs and contrary opinions ; and 
I may hope to find variety in life, though I should miss 
it in na'ture. 

" With this thought I quieted my mind, and amused 
myself during the voyage, sometimes by learning 
from the sailors the art of navigation, which I have 
never practised, and sometimes by forming schemes for 
my conduct in different situations, in not one of which 
I have been ever placed. 

" I was almost weary of my naval amusements when 
we landed safely at Surat. I secured my money, 
and purchasing some commodities for show, joined 
myself to a caravan that was passing into the inland 
country. My companions, for some reason or other, 
conjecturing that I was rich, and, by my inquiries and 
admiration, finding that I was ignorant, considered mo 
as a novice whom they had a right to cheat, and who 
was to learn, at the usual expense, the art of fraud. 
They exposed me to the theft of servants and the exac- 
tion of officers, and saw me plundered upon false 
pretences, without any advantage to themselves, but 
that of rejoicing in the superiority of their own know- 
ledge." 

" Stop a moment," said the prince. " Is there such 
depravity in man, as that he should injure another with- 
out benefit to himself? I can easily conceive that all 
are pleased with superiority ; but your ignorance was 
merely accidental, which, being neither your crime nor 
your folly, could afford them no reason to applaud 
themselves ; and the knowledge which they had, and 
which you wanted, they might as effectually have 
shown by warning, as betraying you" 



RASSELAS. 27 

" Pride," said Imlac, " is seldom delicate, it will 
please itself with very mean advantages ; and envy 
feels not its own happiness, but when it may be 
compared with the misery of others. They were my 
enemies, because they grieved to think me rich ; and 
my oppressors, because they delighted to find me 
weak." 

" Proceed," said the prince : " I doubt not of the 
facts which you relate, but imagine that you impute 
them to mistaken motives." 

" In this company," said Imlac, " I arrived at Agra, 
the capital of Indostan, the city in which the great 
Mogul commonly resides. I applied myself to the 
language of the country, and in a few months was able 
to converse with the learned men ; some of whom 
I found morose and reserved, and others easy and 
communicative ; some were unwilling to teach another 
what they had with difficulty learned themselves ; and 
some showed that the end of their studies was to gain 
the dignity of instructing. 

" To the tutor of the young princes I recommended 
myself so much, that I was presented to the emperor 
as a man of uncommon knowledge. The emperor 
asked me many questions concerning my country and 
my travels ; and though I cannot now recollect any 
thing that he uttered above the power of a common 
man, he dismissed me astonished at his wisdom, and 
enamoured of his goodness. 

" My credit was now so high, that the merchants, with 
whom I had travelled, applied to me for recommenda- 
tions to the ladies of the court. I was surprised at their 
confidence of solicitation, and gently reproached them 
with their practices on the road. They heard me 
with cold indifference, and showed no tokens of shame 
or sorrow. 

11 They then urged their request with the offer of 
a bribe ; but what I would not do for kindness, I would 
not do for money ; and refused them ; not because they 



28 RASSELAS. 

had injured me, but because I would not enable them 

to injure others ; for I knew they would have made 

use of my credit to cheat those who should buy their 

wares. 

" Having resided at Agra till there was no more 
to be learned, I travelled into Persia, where I saw 
many remains of ancient magnificence, and observed 
many new accommodations of life. The Persians are 
a nation eminently social, and their assemblies afford- 
ed me daily opportunities of remarking characters and 
manners, and of tracing human nature through all its 
variations. 

" From Persia I passed into Arabia, where I saw a 
nation at once pastoral and warlike ; who live without 
any settled habitation ; whose only wealth is their 
flocks and herds ; and who have yet carried on, 
through all ages, an hereditary war with all mankind, 
though they neither covet nor envy their possessions." 



CHAPTER X. 

Jmlac's History continued. A Dissertation vpon 
Poetry. 

11 Wherever I went, I found that poetry was con- 
sidered as the highest learning, and regarded with a 
veneration somewhat approaching to that which man 
would pay to the Angelic Nature. And yet it fills me 
with wonder, that, in almost all countries, the most 
ancient poets are considered as the best : whether it be 
that every other kind of knowledge is an acquisition 
gradually attained, and poetry is a gift conferred at 
once ; or that the first poetry of every nation sur- 
prised them as a novelty, and retained the credit, by 
consent, which it received by accident at first ; or 
whether, as the province of poetry is to describe na- 
ture and passion, which are always the same, the first 



RASSELAS. 20 

writers took possession of the most striking object for 
description, and the most probable occurrences for 
fiction, and left nothing to those that followed them, 
but transcription of the same events, and new com- 
bination of the same images : Whatever be the reason, 
it is commonly observed, that the early writers are in 
possession of nature, and their followers of art : that 
the first excel in strength and invention, and the lat- 
ter in elegance and refinement. 

" I was desirous to add my name to this illustrious 
fraternity. I read all. the poets of Persia and Arabia, 
and was able to repeat by memory the volumes that 
are suspended in the mosque of Mecca. But I soon 
found that no man was ever great by imitation. My 
desire of excellence impelled me to transfer my atten- 
tion to nature and to life. Nature was to be my sub- 
ject, and men to be my auditors : I could never de- 
scribe what I had not seen ; I could not hope to move 
those with delight or terrour, whose interests and opi- 
nions I did not understand. 

" Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw every thing 
with a new purpose ; my sphere of attention was sud- 
denly magnified ; no kind of knowledge was to be 
overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for 
images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind 
every tree of the forest and flower of the valley. I 
observed with equal care the crags of the rock and the 
pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along 
the mazes of the rivulet, and sometimes watched the 
changes of the summer clouds. To a poet nothing can 
be useless. Whatever is beautiful, and whatever is 
dreadful, must be familiar to his imagination : he must 
be conversant with all that is awfully vast or elegantly 
little. The plants of the garden, the animals of the 
wood, the minerals of the earth, and meteors of \ the 
sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhausti- 
ble variety : for every idea is useful for the enforce- 
ment or decoration of moral or religious truth ; and 
3* 



30 RASSELAS. 

he who knows most, will have most power of diversify- 
ing his scenes, and of gratifying his reader with re- 
mote allusions and unexpected instruction. 

" All the appearances of nature I was therefore 
careful to study, and every country which I have 
surveyed has contributed something to my poetical 
powers." 

" In so wide a survey," said the prince, " you must 
surely have left much unobserved. I have lived, till 
now, within the circuit of these mountains, and yet 
cannot walk abroad without the sight of something 
which I had never beheld before, or never heeded." 

" The business of a poet," said Imlac, " is to ex- 
amine, not the individual, but the species ; to remark 
general properties and large appearances : he does not 
number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the differ- 
ent shades in the verdure of the forest : He is to ex- 
hibit in his portraits of nature such prominent and 
striking features, as recall the original to every mind ; 
and must neglect the minuter discriminations, which 
one may have remarked, and another have neglected, 
for those characteristicks which are alike obvious to 
vigilance and carelessness. 

" But the knowledge of nature is only half the 
task of a poet : he must be acquainted likewise with 
all the modes of life. His character requires that he 
estimate the happiness and misery of every condition ; 
observe the power of all the passions in all their com- 
binations, and trace the changes of the human mind 
as they are modified by various institutions and acci- 
dental influences of climate or custom, from the 
sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of de- 
crepitude. He must divest himself of the prejudices 
of his age or country ; he must consider right and 
wrong in their abstracted and invariable state ; lie 
must disregard present laws and opinions, and rise to 
general and transcendental truths, which will always 
be the same : he must therefore content himself with 



RASSELAS. 31 

the slow progress of his name ; contemn the applause 
of his own time ; and commit his claims to the justice 
of posterity. He must write as the interpreter of 
nature, and the legislator of mankind, and consider 
himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners 
of future generations ; as a being superiour to time and 
place. 

u His labour is not yet at an end : he must know 
many languages and many sciences ; and, that his 
style may be worthy of his thoughts, must, by incessant 
practice, familiarize to himself every delicacy of 
speech and grace of harmony." 



CHAPTER XI. 

Imlac's Narrative continued. A hint on Pilgrimage. 

Imlac now felt the enthusiastick fit, and was pro- 
ceeding to aggrandize his own profession, when the 
prince cried out, " Enough ! thou hast convinced me, 
that no human being can ever be a poet. Proceed 
with thy narration." 

" To be a poet," said Imlac, " is indeed very diffi- 
cult." " So difficult," returned the prince, " that I 
will at present hear no more of his labours. Tell me 
whither you went when you had seen Persia." 

" From Persia," said the poet, " I travelled through 
Syria, and for three years resided in Palestine, where 
I conversed with great numbers of the northern and 
western nations of Europe ; the nations which are 
now in possession of all power and all knowledge ; 
whose armies are irresistible, and whose fleets com- 
mand the remotest parts of the globe. When I com- 
pared these men with the natives of our own king- 
dom, and those that surround us, they appeared almoBt 
another order of beings. In their countries it is diffi- 
cult to wish for, any thing, that may not be obtained : a 



32 RASSELAS. 

thousand arts, of which we never heard, are conti- 
nually labouring for their convenience and pleasure ; 
and whatever their own climate has denied them, is 
supplied by their commerce." 

" By what mean3," said the prince, " are the Euro- 
peans thus powerful ? or why, since they can so easily 
visit Asia and Africa, for trade or conquest, cannot the 
Asiaticks and Africans invade their coasts, plant colo- 
nies in their ports, and give laws to their natural 
princes ? The same wind that carries them back would 
bring us thither." 

" They are more powerful, sir, than we," answered 
Imlac, " because they are wiser ; knowledge will 
always predominate over ignorance, as man governs 
the other animals. But why their knowledge is more 
than ours, I know not what reason can be given, but 
the unsearchable will of the Supreme Being." 

" When," said the prince, with a sigh, " shall I be 
able to visit Palestine, and mingle with this mighty 
confluence of nations ? Till that happy moment shall 
arrive, let me fill up the time with such representa- 
tions as thou canst give me. I am not ignorant of the 
motive that assembles such numbers in that place, and 
cannot but consider it as the centre of wisdom and 
piety, to which the best and wisest men of every land 
must be continually resorting." 

" There are some nations," said Imlac, " that send 
few visitants to Palestine ; for many numerous and 
learned sects in Europe concur to censure pilgrimage 
a3 superstitious, or deride it as ridiculous." 

". You know," said the prince, " how little my life 
has made me acquainted with diversity of opinions : 
it will be too long to hear the arguments on both 
sides ; you, that have considered them, tell me the 
result." 

" Pilgrimage," said Imlac, " like many other acts of 
piety, may be reasonable or superstitious, according to 
the principles upon which it is performed. Long 



RASSELAS. 33 

journeys in search of truth are not commanded. 
Truth, such as is necessary to the regulation of life, 
is always found where it is honestly sought. Change 
of place is no natural cause of the increase of piety, 
for it inevitably produces dissipation of mind. Yet, 
since men go every day to view the fields where great 
actions have been performed, and return with stronger 
impressions of the event, curiosity of the same kind 
may naturally dispose us to view that country whence 
our religion had its beginning ; and I believe ho man 
surveys those awful scenes without some confirmation 
of holy resolutions. That the Supreme Being may be 
more easily propitiated in one place than in another, is 
the dream of idle superstition ; but that some places 
may operate upon our own minds in an uncommon 
manner, is an opinion which hourly experience will 
justify. He who supposes that his vices may be more 
successfully combated in Palestine, will, perhaps, find 
himself mistaken, yet he may go thither without 
folly : he who thinks they will be more freely pardoned, 
dishonours at once his reason and religion." 

" These," said the prince, " are European distinc- 
tions. I will consider them another time. What 
have you found to be the effect of knowledge ? Are 
those nations happier than we ?" 

" There is so much infelicity," said the poet, " in 
the world, that scarce any man has leisure from his 
own distresses to estimate the comparative happiness 
of others. Knowledge is certainly one of the means 
of pleasure, as is confessed by the natural desire 
which every mind feels of increasing its ideas. Igno- 
rance is mere privation, by which nothing can be pro- 
duced ; it is a vacuity in which the soul sits motion- 
less and torpid for want of attraction ; and, without 
knowing why, we always rejoice when we learn, and 
grieve when we forget. I am, therefore, inclined to 
conclude, that, if nothing counteracts the natural con- 



34 RASSELAS. 

sequence of learning, we grow more happy as our 
minds take a wider range. 

" In enumerating the particular comforts of life we 
shall find many advantages on the side of the Euro- 
peans. They cure wounds and diseases with which we 
languish and perish. We suifer inclemencies of wea- 
ther which they can obviate. They have engines for 
the despatch of many laborious works, which we must 
perform by manual industry. There is such com- 
munication between distant places, that one friend can 
hardly be said to be absent from another. Their 
policy removes all publick inconveniencies ; they have 
roads cut through their mountains, and bridges laid 
upon their rivers : and, if we descend to the privacies 
of life, their habitations are more commodious, and 
their possessions are more secure." 

" They are surely happy," said the prince, " who 
have all these conveniencies, of which I envy none so 
much as the facility with which separated friends in- 
terchange their thoughts." 

" The Europeans," answered Imlac, " are less un- 
happy than we, but they are not happy. Human life 
is every where a state in which much is to be endured, 
and little to be enjoyed." 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Story of Imlac continued. 
" I am not yet willing," said the prince, " to sup- 
pose that happiness is so parsimoniously distributed to 
mortals ; nor can believe but that, if I had the choice 
of life, I should be able to fill every day with pleasure. 
1 would injure no man, and should provoke no resent- 
ment : I would relieve every distress, and should en- 
joy the benedictions of gratitude. I would choose my 



RASSELAS. 35 

friends among the wise, and my wife among the vir- 
tuous ; and therefore should be in no danger from 
treachery or unkindness. My children should, by my 
care, be learned and pious, and would repay to my age 
what their childhood had received. What would dare 
to molest him who might call on every side to thou- 
sands enriched by his bounty, or assisted by his power ? 
And why should not life glide quietly away in the soft 
reciprocation of protection and reverence ? All this 
may be done without the help of European refinements, 
which appear by their effects to be rather specious than 
useful. Let us leave them, and pursue our journey." 

" From Palestine," said Imlac, " I passed through 
many regions of Asia; in the more civilized kingdoms 
as a trader, and among the barbarians of the moun- 
tains as a pilgrim. At last I began to long for my 
native country, that I might repose, after my travels 
and fatigues, in the places where I had spent my ear- 
liest years, and gladden my old companions with the 
recital of my adventures. Often did I figure to my- 
self those with whom I had sported away the gay 
hours of dawning life, sitting round me in its evening, 
wondering at my tales, and listening to my counsels. 

" When this thought had taken possession of my 
mind, I considered every moment as wasted which did 
not bring me nearer to Abyssinia. I hastened into 
Egypt, and, notwithstanding my impatience, was de- 
tained ten months in the contemplation of its ancient 
magnificence, and in inquiries after the remains of its 
ancient learning. I found in Cairo a mixture of all 
nations ; some brought thither by the love of know- 
ledge, some by the hope of gain, and many by the 
desire of living after their own manner without obser- 
vation, and of lying hid in the obscurity of multitudes ; 
for in a city, populous as Cairo, it is possible to obtain 
at the same time the gratifications of society, and the 
secrecy of solitude. 

" From Cairo I travelled to Suez, and embarked on 



36 RASSELAS. 

the Red Sea, passing along the coast till I arrived at 
the port from which I had departed twenty years before. 
Here I joined myself to a caravan, and re-entered my 
native country. 

" I now expected the caresses of my kinsmen, and 
the congratulations of my friends, and was not with- 
out hope that my father, whatever value he had set 
upon riches, would own with gladness and pride a son 
who was able to add to the felicity and honour of the 
nation. But I was soon convinced that my thoughts 
were vain. My father had been dead fourteen years, 
having divided his wealth among my brothers, who 
were removed to some other provinces. Of my com- 
panions the greater part was in the grave ; of the 
rest, some could with difficulty remember me, and 
some considered me as one corrupted by foreign man- 
ners. 

" A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected. 
I forgot, after a time, my disappointment, and endea- 
voured to recommend myself to ' the nobles of the 
kingdom ; they admitted me to their tables, heard my 
story, and dismissed me. I opened a school, and was 
prohibited to teach. I then resolved to sit down in 
the quiet of domestick life, and addressed a lady that 
was fond of my conversation, but rejected my suit be- 
cause my father was a merchant. 

" Wearied at last with solicitation and repulses, 
I resolved to hide myself for ever from the world, and 
depend no longer on the opinion or caprice of others. 
I waited for the time when the gate of the happy val- 
ley should open, that I might bid farewell to hope and 
fear : the day came ; my performance was distinguish- 
ed with favour, and 1 resigned myself with joy to per- 
petual confinement." 

" Hast thou here found happiness at last ?" said 
Rasselas. " Tell me without reserve ; art thou con 
tent with thy condition ? or, dost thou wish to be again 
wandering and inquiring ? All the inhabitants of this 



RASSELAS. 37 

valley celebrate their lot, and at the annual visit of 
the emperor, invite others to partake of their feli- 
city." 

" Great prince," said Imlac, " I shall speak the 
truth ; I know not one of all your attendants who does 
not lament the hour when he entered this retreat. I 
am less unhappy than the rest, because I have a mind 
replete with images, which I can vary and combine at 
pleasure. I can amuse my solitude by the renovation of 
the knowledge which begins to fade from my memory, 
and by recollection of the accidents of my past life. 
Yet all this ends in the sorrowful consideration, that 
my acquirements are now useless, and that none of my 
pleasures can be again enjoyed. The rest, whose 
minds have n6 impression but of the present moment, 
are either corroded by malignant passions, or sit stupid 
in the gloom of perpetual vacancy." 

" What passions can infest those," said the prince, 
" who have no rivals ? We are in a place where impo- 
tence precludes malice, and where all envy is repress- 
ed by community of enjoyments." 

" There may be community," said Imlac, " of ma- 
terial possessions, but there can never be community 
of love or of esteem. It must happen that one will 
please more than another ; he that knows himself de- 
spised will always be envious, and still more envious 
and! malevolent if he is condemned to live in the pre- 
sence of those who despise him. The invitations, by 
which they allure others to a state which they feel to 
be wretched, proceed from the natural malignity of 
hopeless misery. They are weary of themselves, and 
of each other, and expect to find relief in new com- 
panions. They envy the liberty which their folly has 
forfeited, and would gladly see all mankind imprisoned 
like themselves. 

;: From this crime, however, I am wholly free. No 
Tian can say that he is wretched by my persuasion, 
[ look with pity on the crowds who are annually soli- 



38 RASSELAS. 

citing admission to captivity, and wish that it were 
lawful for me to warn them of their danger." 

" My dear Imlac," said the prince, " I will open to 
thee my whole heart. I have long meditated an escape 
from the happy valley. I have examined the moun- 
tains on every side, but find myself insuperably barred : 
teach me the way to break my prison ; thou shalt be 
the companion of my flight, the guide of my rambles, 
the partner of my for tune,, and-lfly sole director in the 
choice of life." 

" Sir," answered the poet, " your escape will be 
difficult, and, perhaps, you may soon repent your 
curiosity. The world, which you figure to yourself 
smooth and quiet as the lake in the valley, you will 
find a sea foaming with tempests, and boiling with 
whirlpools ; you will be sometimes overwhelmed by 
the waves of violence, and sometimes dashed against 
the rocks of treachery. Amidst wrongs and frauds, 
competitions and anxieties, you will wish a thou- 
sand times for these seats of quiet, and willingly quit 
hope to be free from fear." 

" Do not seek to deter me from my purpose," said 
the prince ; " I am impatient to see what thou hast 
seen ; and, since thou art thyself weary of the valley, 
it is evident that thy former state was better than this. 
Whatever be the consequence of my experiment, I am 
resolved to judge with mine own eyes of the various 
conditions of men, and then to make deliberately my 
choice of life." 

•'< I am afraid," said Imlac, " you are hindered by 
stronger restraints than my persuasions ; yet, if your 
determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. 
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill." 



RASSELAS. 39 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Rasselas discovers the Means of Escape. 

The prince now dismissed his favourite to rest, but 
the narrative of wonders and novelties filled his mind 
with perturbation. He revolved all that he had heard, 
and prepared innumerable questions for the morning. 

Much of his uneasiness was now removed. He had 
a friend to whom he could impart his thoughts, and 
whose experience could assist him in his designs. His 
heart was no longer condemned to swell with silent 
vexation. He thought that even the happy valley 
might be endured with such a companion, and that, if 
they could range the world together, he shouiti have 
nothing further to desire. 

In a few days the water was discharged, and the 
ground dried. The prince and Imlac then walked out 
together to converse without the notice of the rest. 
The prince, whose thoughts were always on the wing, 
as he passed by the gate, said, with a countenance of 
sorrow, " Why art thou so strong, and why is man so 
weak ?" 

" Man is not weak," answered his companion ; 
" knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The 
master of mechanicks laughs at strength. I can burst 
the gate, but cannot do it secretly. Some other expe- 
dient must be tried." 

As they were walking on the side of the mountain, 
they observed that the conies, which the rain had driv- 
en from their burrows, had taken shelter among the 
bushes, and formed holes behind them, tending upwards 
in an oblique line. " It has been the opinion of anti- 
quity," said Imlac, " that human reason borrowed many 
arts from the instinct of animals ; let us, therefore, not 
think ourselves degraded by learning from the cony. 
We may escape by piercing the mountain in the same 



40 RASSELAS. 

direction. We will begin where the summit hangs 
over the middle part, and labour upward till we shall 
issue up beyond the prominence." 

The eyes of the prince, when he heard this proposal, 
sparkled with joy. The execution was easy, and the 
success certain. 

No time was now lost. They hastened early in the 
morning to choose a place proper for their mine. They 
clambered with great fatigue among crags and bram- 
bles, and returned without having discovered any part 
that favoured their design. The second and the third 
day were spent in the same manner, and with the same 
frustration. But, on the fourth, they found a small 
cavern, concealed by a thicket, where they resolved 
to make their experiment. 

Imlac procured instruments proper to hew stone and 
remove earth, and they fell to their work on the next 
day with more eagerness than vigour. They were 
presently exhausted by their efforts, and sat down to 
pant upon the grass. The prince, for a moment, ap- 
peared to be discouraged. " Sir," said his companion, 
" practice will enable us to continue our labour for a 
longer time ; mark, however, how far we have advanc- 
ed, and you will find that our toil will some time have 
an end. Great works are performed, not by strength, 
but perseverance : yonder palace was raised by single 
stones, yet you see its height and spaciousness. He 
that shall walk with vigour three hours a day, will pass 
in seven years a space equal to the circumference of 
the globe." 

They returned to their work day after day, and, in 
a short time, found a fissure in the rock, which ena- 
bled them to pass far with very little obstruction. 
This Rasselas considered as a good omen. " Do not 
disturb your mind," said Imlac, " with other hopes or 
fears than reason may suggest : if you are pleased 
with prognosticks of good, you will be terrified like- 
wise with tokens of evil, and vour whole life will be a 



RASSELAS. 41 

prey to superstition. Whatever facilitates our work 
is more than an omen, it is a cause of success. This 
is one of those pleasing surprises which often happen 
to active resolution. Many things difficult to design, 
prove easy to performance." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Rasselas and Imlac receive an unexpected Visit. 

They had now wrought their way to the middle, 
and solaced their toil with the approach of liberty, 
when the prince, coming down to refresh himself with 
air, found his sister Nekayah standing before the 
mouth of the cavity. He started and stood confused, 
afraid to tell his design, and yet hopeless to conceal 
it. A few moments determined him to repose on her 
fidelity, and secure her secrecy by a declaration with- 
out reserve. 

" Do not imagine," said the princess, " that I came 
hither as a spy : I had long observed from my window, 
that you and Imlac directed your walk every day to- 
wards the same point, but I did not suppose you had 
any better reason for the preference than a cooler 
shade, or more fragrant bank ; nor followed you with 
any other design than to partake of your conversation. 
Since then not suspicion but fondness has detected 
you, let me not lose the advantage of my discovery. 
I am equally weary of confinement with yourself, and 
not less desirous of knowing what is done or suffered 
in the world. Permit me to fly with you from this 
tasteless tranquillity, which will yet grow more loath- 
some when you have left me. You may deny me to 
accompany you, but cannot hinder me from following." 

The prince, who loved Nekayah above his other sis- 
ters, had no inclination to refuse her request, and 
grieved that he had lost an opportunity of showing his 



42 RASSELAS. 

confidence by a voluntary communication. It was 
therefore agreed that she should leave the valley with 
them ; and that, in the mean time, she should watch 
lest any other straggler should, by chance or curiosity, 
follow them to the mountain. 

At length their labour was at an end ; they saw 
light beyond the prominence, and, issuing to the top 
of the mountain, beheld the Nile, yet a narrow cur- 
rent, wandering beneath them. 

The prince looked round with rapture, anticipat- 
ed all the pleasures of travel, and in thought was 
already transported beyond his father's dominions. 
Imlac, though very joyful at his escape, had less ex- 
pectation of pleasure in the world, which he had be- 
fore tried, and of which he had been weary. 

Rasselas was so much delighted with a wider hori- 
zon, that he could not soon be persuaded to return into 
the valley. He informed his sister that the way was 
open, and that nothing now remained but to prepare 
for their departure. 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Prince and Princess leave the Valley, and see 
■many Wonders. 

The prince and princess had jewels sufficient to 
make them rich whenever they came into a place 
of commerce, which, by Imlac's direction, they hid 
in their clothes; and, on the night of the next full 
moon, all left the valley. The princess was followed 
only by a single favourite, who did not know whither 
she was going. 

They clambered through the cavity, and began to 
go down on the other side. The princess and her 
maid turned their eyes towards every part, and seeing 
nothing to bound their prospect, considered themselves 
as in danger of being lost in a dreary vacuity. They 



KASSELAS. 43 

stopped and trembled. " I am almost afraid," said 
the princess, " to begin a journey of which I cannot 
perceive an end, and to venture into this immense 
plain, where I may be approached on every side by 
men whom I never saw." The prince felt nearly the 
same emotions, though he thought it more manly to 
conceal them. 

Imlac smiled at their terrours, and encouraged them 
to proceed ; but the princess continued irresolute, till 
she had been imperceptibly drawn forward too far to 
return. 

In the morning they found some shepherds in the 
field, who set milk and fruits before them. The prin- 
cess wondered that she did not see a palace ready for 
her reception, and a table spread with delicacies ; but 
being faint and hungry, she drank the milk and eat 
the fruits, and thought them of a higher flavour than 
the produce of the valley. 

They travelled forward by easy journeys, being all 
unaccustomed to toil or difficulty, and knowing, that 
though they might be missed, they could not be pur- 
sued. In a few days they came into a more populous 
region, where Imlac was diverted with the admiration 
which his companions expressed at the diversity of 
manners, stations, and employments. 

Their dress was such as might not bring upon them 
the suspicion of having any thing to conceal, yet the 
prince, wherever he came, expected to be obeyed, and 
the princess was frightened, because those that came 
into her presence did not prostrate themselves before 
her. Imlac was forced to observe them with great 
vigilance, lest they should betray their rank by their 
unusual behaviour, and detained them several weeks 
in the first village, to accustom them to the sight of 
common mortals. 

By degrees the royal wanderers were taught to 
understand, that they had for a time laid aside their 
dignity, and were to expect only such regard as 



44 RASSELAS. 

liberality and courtesy could procure. And Imlac 
having, by many admonitions, prepared them to endure 
the tumults of a port, and the ruggedness of the com- 
mercial race, brought them down to the sea-coast. 

The prince and his sister, to whom every thing was 
new, were gratified equally at all places, and therefore 
remained for some months at the port without any 
inclination to pass further. Imlac was content with 
their stay, because he did not think it safe to expose 
them, unpractised in the world, to the hazards of 
a foreign country. 

At last he began to fear lest they should be dis- 
covered, and proposed- to fix a day for their departure. 
They had no pretensions to judge for themselves, and 
referred the whole scheme to his direction. He there- 
fore took passage in a ship to Suez ; and, when the 
time came, with great difficulty prevailed on the prin- 
cess to enter the vessel. They had a quick and 
prosperous voyage, and from Suez travelled by land to 
Cairo. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

They enter Cairo, and find every Man happy. 
As they approached the city, which filled the stran- 
gers with astonishment, " This," said Imlac to the 
prince, " is the place where travellers and merchants 
assemble from all the corners of the earth. You will 
here find men of every character and every occupation. 
Commerce is here honourable : I will act . as a mer- 
chant, and you shall live as strangers, who have no 
other end of travel than curiosity. It will soon be ob- 
served that we are rich ; our reputation will procure us 
access* to all whom we shall desire to know ; you will 
see all the conditions of humanity, and enable your- 
self at leisure to make your choice of life." 



RASSELAS. 45 

They now entered the town, stunned by the noise, 
and offended by the crowds. Instruction had not yet 
so prevailed over habit, but that they wondered to see 
themselves pass undistinguished along the street, and 
met by the lowest of the people without reverence or 
notice. The princess could not at first bear the 
thought of being levelled with the vulgar, and, for 
some days, continued in her chamber, where she was 
served by her favourite Pekuah, as in the palace of the 
valley. 

Imlac, who understood traffick, sold part of the jewels 
the next day, and hired a house, which he adorned 
with such magnificence, that he was immediately con- 
sidered as a merchant of great wealth. His polite- 
ness attracted many acquaintance, and his generosity 
made him courted by many dependants. His table 
was crowded by men of every nation, who all admired 
his knowledge, and solicited his favour. His com- 
panions, not being able to mix in the conversation, 
could make no discovery of their ignorance or surprise, 
and were gradually initiated in the world as they 
gained knowledge of the language. 

The prince had, by frequent lectures, been taught 
the use and nature of money ; but the ladies could 
not, for a long time, comprehend what the merchants 
did with small pieces of gold and silver, or why things 
of so little use should be received as equivalent to the 
necessaries of life. 

They studied the language two years, while Imlac 
was preparing to set before them the various ranks and 
conditions of mankind. He grew acquainted with all 
who had any thing uncommon in their fortune or 
conduct : he frequented the voluptuous and the frugal, 
the idle and the busy, the merchants and the men of 
learning. 

The prince being now able to converse with fluency, 
and having learned the caution necessary to be observ- 
ed in his intercourse with strangers, began to accom- 



46 RASSELAS. 

pany Imlac to places of resort, and to enter into all 

assemblies, that he might make his choice of life. 

For some time he thought choice needless, because 
all appeared to him equally happy. Wherever he went 
he met gayety and kindness, and heard the song of joy 
or the laugh of carelessness. He began to believe 
that the world overflowed with universal plenty, and 
that nothing was withheld either from want or merit ; 
that every hand showered liberality, and every heart 
melted with benevolence ; " and who then," says he, 
" will be suffered to be wretched ?" 

Imlac permitted the pleasing delusion, and was 
unwilling to crush the hope of inexperience, till one 
day, having sat a while silent, " I know not," said the 
prince, " what can be the reason that I am more un- 
happy than any of our friends : I see them perpetually 
and unalterably cheerful, but feel my own mind restless 
and uneasy. I am unsatisfied with those pleasures 
which I seem most to court. I live in the crowds of 
jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun my- 
self, and am only loud and merry to conceal my sad- 
ness." 

" Every man," said Imlac, " may, by examining his 
own mind, guess what passes in the minds of others : 
when you feel that your own gayety is counterfeit, it 
may justly lead you to suspect that of your compa- 
nions not to be sincere. Envy is commonly reciprocal. 
We are long before we are convinced that happiness 
is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by 
others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for him- 
self. In the assembly where you passed the last night, 
there appeared such sprightliness of air, and volatility 
of fancy, as might have suited beings of a higher 
order, formed to inhabit serener regions, inaccessible 
to care or sorrow : yet believe me, prince, there was 
not one who did not dread the moment when solitude 
should deliver him to the tyranny of reflection." 

u This," said the prince, " may be true of others, 



RASSELAS. 47 

since it is true of me ; yet whatever be the general 
infelicity of man, one condition is more happy than 
another, and wisdom surely directs us to take the 
least evil in the choice of life." 

" The causes of good and evil," answered Imlac, 
" are so various and uncertain, so often entangled with 
each other, so diversified by various relations, and so 
much subject to accidents which cannot be foreseen, 
that he who would fix his condition upon incontestable 
reasons of preference, must live and die inquiring and 
deliberating." 

" But surely," said Rasselas, " the wise men, to 
whom we listen with reverence and wonder, chose 
that mode of life for themselves which they thought 
most likely to make them happy." 

" Very few," said the poet, " live by choice. Every 
man is placed in his present condition by causes which 
acted without his foresight, and with which he did not 
always willingly co-operate ; and therefore you will 
rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his 
neighbour better than his own." 

" I am pleased to think," said the prince, " that my 
birth has given me at least one advantage over others, 
by enabling me to determine for myself. I have here 
the world before me : I will review it at leisure : sure- 
ly happiness is somewhere to be found." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

The Prince associates with young Men of Spirit and 

Gayety. 

Rassklas rose next day, and resolved to begin his 

experiments upon life. " Youth," cried he, " is the 

time of gladness : I will join myself to the young 

men, whose only business is to gratify their desires, 



48 RASSELAS. 

and whose time is all spent in a succession of enjoy- 
ments." 

To such societies he was readily admitted, but a few 
days brought him back weary and disgusted. Their 
mirth was without images ; their laughter without 
motive ; their pleasures were gross and sensual, in 
which the mind had no part ; their conduct was at 
once wild and mean ; they laughed at order and at 
law, but the frown of power dejected, and the eye of 
wisdom abashed them. 

The prince soon concluded, that he should never be 
happy in a course of life of which he was ashamed. 
He thought it unsuitable to a reasonable being to 
act without a plan, and to be sad or cheerful only by 
chance. " Happiness," said he, " must be something 
solid and permanent, without fear and without uncer- 
tainty." 

But his young companions had gained so much of 
his regard by their frankness and courtesy, that he 
could not leave them without warning and remon- 
strance. " My friends," said he, " I have seriously 
considered our manners and our prospects, and find 
that we have mistaken our own interest. The first 
years of man must make provision for the last. He 
that never thinks, never can be wise. Perpetual le- 
vity must end in ignorance ; and intemperance, though 
it may fire the spirits for an hour, will make life short 
or miserable. Let us consider that youth is of no long 
duration, and that in maturer age, when the enchant- 
ments of fancy shall cease, and phantoms of delight 
dance no more about us, we shall have no comforts 
but the esteem of wise men, and the means of doing 
good. Let us, therefore, stop, while to stop is in our 
power ; let us live as men who are some time to grow 
old, and to whom it will be the most dreadful of ail 
evils to count their past years by follies, and to be re- 
minded of their former luxuriance of health only by 
the maladies which riot has produced." 



RASSELAS. 49 

They stared awhile in silence one upon another, and 
at last drove him away by a general chorus of conti- 
nued laughter. 

The consciousness that his sentiments were just, and 
his intentions kind, was scarcely sufficient to support 
him against the horrour of derision. But he recovered 
his tranquillity, and pursued his search. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Prince finds a wise and happy Man. 

As he was one day walking in the street, he saw a 
spacious building, which all were, by the open doors, 
invited to enter: He followed the stream of people, 
and found it a hall or school of declamation, in which 
professors read lectures to their auditory. He fixed 
his eye upon a sage raised above the rest, who dis- 
coursed with great energy on the government of the 
passions. His look was venerable, his action graceful, 
his pronunciation clear, and his diction elegant. He 
showed, with great strength of sentiment, and variety 
of illustration, that human nature is degraded and 
debased, when the lower faculties predominate over 
the higher ; that when fancy, the parent of passion, 
usurps the dominion of the mind, nothing ensues but 
the natural effect of unlawful government, perturba- 
tion, and confusion ; that she betrays the fortresses of 
the intellect to rebels, and excites her children to se- 
dition against reason, their lawful sovereign. He 
compared reason to the sun, of which the light is con- 
stant, uniform, and lasting ; and fancy to a meteor, of 
bright but transitory lustre, irregular in its motion, 
and delusive in its direction. 

He then communicated the various precepts given 
from time to time for the conquest of passion, and 
displayed the happiness of those who had obtained the 



50 RASSELAS. 

important victory, after which man is no longer the 
slave of fear, nor the fool of hope ; is no more emaci- 
ated by envy, inflamed by anger, emasculated by ten- 
derness, or depressed by grief; but walks on calmly 
through the tumults or privacies of life, as the sun 
pursues alike his course through the calm or the 
stormy sky. 

He enumerated many examples of heroes immove- 
able by pain or pleasure, who looked with indifference 
on those modes or accidents to which the vulgar give 
the names of good and evil. He exhorted his hearers 
to lay aside their prejudices, and arm themselves 
against the shafts of malice or misfortune, by invulne- 
rable patience ; concluding, that this state only was 
happiness, and that this happiness was in every one's 
power. 

Rasselas listened to him with the veneration due to 
the instructions of a superiour being, and waiting for 
him at the door, humbly implored the liberty of visit- 
ing so great a master of true wisdom. The lecturer 
hesitated a moment, when Rasselas put a purse of gold 
into his hand, which he received with a mixture of 
'joy and wonder. 

" I have found," said the prince, at his return to 
Imlac, " a man who can teach all that is necessary to 
be known ; who, from the unshaken throne of rational 
fortitude, looks down on the scenes of life changing 
beneath him. He speaks, and attention watches his 
lips. He reasons, and conviction closes his periods. 
This man shall be my future guide : I will learn his 
doctrines, and imitate his life." 

" Be not too hasty," said Imlac, " to trust, or to 
admire,, the teachers of morality : they discourse like 
angels, but they live like men." 

Rasselas, who could not conceive how any man 
could reason so forcibly without feeling the cogency 
of his own arguments, paid his visit in a few days, 
and was denied admission He had now learned the 



RASSELAS. 51 

power of money, and made his way by a piece of gold 
to the inner apartment, where he found the philoso- 
pher in a room half darkened, with his eyes misty, and 
his face pale. " Sir," said he, " you are come at a 
time when all human friendship is useless ; what I 
suffer cannot be remedied, what I have lost cannot be 
supplied. My daughter, my only daughter, from 
whose tenderness I expected all the comforts of my 
age, died last night of a fever. My views, my pur- 
poses, my hopes, are at an end : I am now a lonely 
being disunited from society." 

" Sir," said the prince, " mortality is an event by 
which a wise man can never be surprised : we know 
that death is always near, and it should therefore al- 
ways be expected." " Young man," answered the 
philosopher, " you speak like one that has never felt 
the pangs of separation." " Have you then forgot the 
precepts," said Rasselas, "which you so powerfully 
enforced ? Has wisdom no strength to arm the heart 
against calamity ? Consider, that external things are 
naturally variable, but truth and reason are always 
the same." " What comfort," said the mourner, " can 
truth and reason afford me ? of what effect are they 
now, but to tell me that my daughter will not be re- 
stored ?" 

The prince, whose humanity would not suffer him 
to insult misery with reproof, went away convinced of 
the emptiness of rhetorical sound, and the inefhcacy 
of polished periods and studied sentences. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

A glimpse of pastoral Life. 
He was still eager upon the same inquiry ; and hav- 
ing heard of a hermit, that lived near the lowest cata- 
ract of the Nile, and filled the whole country with the 



52 RASSELAS. 

fame of his sanctity, resolved to visit his retreat, and 
inquire whether that felicity, which publick life could 
not afford, was to be found in solitude ; and whether a 
man, whose age and virtue made him venerable, could 
teach any peculiar art of shunning evils, or enduring 
them ? 

Imlac and the princess agreed to accompany him, 
and, after the necessary preparations, they began their 
journey. Their way lay through the fields, where 
shepherds tended their flocks, and the lambs were 
playing upon the pasture. " This," said the poet, " is 
the life which has been often celebrated for its inno- 
cence and quiet ; let us pass the heat of the day among 
the shepherds' tents, and know whether all our search- 
es are not to terminate in pastoral simplicity." 

The proposal pleased them ; and they induced the 
shepherds, by small presents and familiar questions, to 
tell their opinion of their own state. They were so 
rude and ignorant, so little able to compare the good 
with the evil of the occupation, and so indistinct in 
their narratives and descriptions, that very little could 
be learned from them. But it was evident, that their 
hearts were cankered with discontent ; that they con- 
sidered themselves as condemned to labour for the 
luxury of the rich, and looked up with stupid malevo- 
lence toward those that were placed above them. 

The princess pronounced with vehemence, that she 
would never suffer these envious savages to be her 
. companions, and that she should not soon be desirous 
of seeing any more specimens of rustick happiness ; but 
could not believe that all the accounts of primeval 
pleasures were fabulous ; and was yet in doubt, whether 
life had any thing that could be justly preferred to 
the placid gratifications of fields and woods. She 
hoped that the time would come, when, with a few 
virtuous and elegant companions, she should gather 
flowers planted by her own hand, fondle the lambs of 
her own ewe, and listen, without care, among brooks 



RASSP^LAS. 53 

and breezes, to one of her maidens reading in the 
shade. 



CHAPTER XX. 

The Danger of Prosperity. 

On the next day they continued their journey, till 
the heat compelled them to look round for shelter. 
At a small distance they saw a thick wood, which they 
no sooner entered than they perceived that they were 
approaching the habitations of men. The shrubs were 
diligently cut away to open walks where the shades 
were darkest ; the boughs of opposite trees were arti- 
ficially interwoven ; seats of flowery turf were raised 
in vacant spaces ; and a rivulet, that wantoned along 
the side of a winding path, had its banks sometimes 
opened into small basins, and its stream sometimes 
obstructed by little mounds of stone heaped together 
to increase its murmurs. «. 

They passed slowly through the wood, delighted 
with such unexpected accommodations, and entertain- 
ed each other with conjecturing what, or who, he 
could be, that in those rude and unfrequented regions, 
had leisure and art for such harmless luxury. . 

As they advanced they heard the sound of musick, 
and saw youths and virgins dancing in the grove ; 
and, going still further, beheld a stately palace built 
upon a hill surrounded with woods. The laws of east- 
ern hospitality allowed them to enter, and the master 
welcomed them like a man liberal and wealthy. 

He was skilful enough in appearances soon to dis- 
cern that they were no common guests, and spread 
his table with magnificence. The eloquence of Imlac 
caught his attention, and the lofty courtesy of the prin- 
cess excited his respect. When they offered to depart 
he entreated their stay, and was the next day still 
more unwilling: to dismiss them than before. They 



54 RASSELAS. 

were easily persuaded to stop, and civility grew up in 

time to freedom and confidence. 

The prince now saw all the domesticks cheerful, 
and all the face of nature smiling round the place, and 
could not forbear to hope he should find here what he 
was seeking ; but when he was congratulating the 
master upon his possessions, he answered with a sigh, 
" My condition has indeed the appearance of happi- 
ness, but appearances are delusive. My prosperity 
puts my life in danger ; the Bassa of Egypt is my en- 
emy, incensed only by my wealth and popularity. I 
have been hitherto protected against him by the prin- 
ces of the country ; but as the favour of the great is 
uncertain, I know not how soon my defenders may be 
persuaded to share the plunder with the Bassa. I 
have sent my treasures into a distant country, and, 
upon the first alarm, am prepared to follow them. 
Then will my enemies riot in my mansion, and enjoy 
the gardens which I have planted." 

They all joined in lamenting his danger, and depre- 
cating his exile : and the princess was so much dis- 
turbed with the tumult of grief and indignation, that 
she retired to her apartment. They continued with 
their kind inviter a few days longer, and then went 
forward to find the hermit. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

The Hajjpiness of Solitude. The Hermit's History . 
They came on the third day, by the direction of the 
peasants, to the hermit's cell : it was a cavern in the 
side of a mountain, overshadowed with palm-trees ; at 
such a distance from the cataract, that nothing more 
was heard than a gentle uniform murmur, such as com- 
posed the mind to pensive meditation, especially when 
it was assisted by the wind whistling among the 



RASSELAS. f.5 

branches. The first rude essay of nature had been so 
much improved by human labour, that the cave con- 
tained«several apartments appropriated to different uses, 
and often afforded lodging to travellers, whom dark- 
ness or tempests happened to overtake. 

The hermit sat on a bench at the door, to enjoy the 
coolness of the evening. On one side lay a book 
with pens and papers ; on the other,- mechanical in- 
struments of various kinds. As they approached him 
unregarded, the princess observed that he had not the 
countenance of a man that had found, or could teacli 
the way to happiness. 

They saluted him with great respect, which he 
repaid like a man not unaccustomed to the forms of 
courts. " My children," said he, " if you have lost 
your way, you shall be willingly supplied with such 
conveniencies for the night as this cavern will afford. 
I have all that nature requires, and you will not expect 
delicacies in a hermit's cell." 

They thanked him, and, entering, were pleased with 
the neatness and regularity of the place. The hermit 
set flesh and wine before them, though he fed only 
upon fruits and water. His discourse was cheerful 
without levity, and pious without enthusiasm. He 
soon gained the esteem of his guests, and the princess 
repented of her hasty censure. 

At last Imlac began thus : " I do not now wonder 
that your reputation is so far extended ; we have heard 
at Cairo of your wisdom, and came hither to implore 
your direction for this young man and maiden in the 
choice of life." 

" To him that lives well," answered the hermit, 
" every form of life is good ; nor can I give any other 
rule for choice, than to remove from all apparent evil." 

" He will remove most certainly from evil," said 
the prince, " who shall devote himself to that solitude 
which you have recommended by your example." 

;: I have indeed lived fifteen years in solitude," said 



56 RASSELAS. 

the hermit, " but have no desire that my example 
should gain any imitators. In my youth I professed 
arms, and was raised by degrees to the highest military 
rank. I have traversed wide countries at the head of 
my troops, and seen many battles and sieges. At last, 
being disgusted by the preferments of a younger 
officer, and feeling that my vigour was beginning to 
decay, I resolved to close my life in peace, having 
found the world full of snares, discord, and misery. I 
had once escaped from the pursuit of the enemy by 
the shelter of this cavern, and therefore chose it for 
my final residence. I employed artificers to form it 
into chambers, and stored it with all that I wasglikely 
to want. 

" For some time after my retreat, I rejoiced like a 
tempest -beaten sailor at his entrance into the harbour, 
being delighted with the sudden change of the noise 
and hurry of war to stillness and repose. When the 
pleasure of novelty went away, I employed my hours 
in examining the plants which grew in the valley, and 
the minerals which I collected from the rocks. But 
that inquiry is now grown tasteless and irksome. I 
have been for some time unsettled and distracted : my 
mind is disturbed with a thousand perplexities of doubt, 
and vanities of imagination, which hourly prevail upon 
me, because I have no opportunities of relaxation or 
diversion. I am sometimes ashamed to think, that I 
could not secure myself from vice but by retiring from 
the exercise of virtue, and begin to suspect that I was 
rather impelled by resentment, than led by devotion, 
into solitude. My fancy riots in scenes of folly, and I 
lament that I have lost so much, and have gained so 
little. In solitude, if I escape the example of bad men, 
I want likewise the counsel and conversation of the 
good. I have been long comparing the evils with the 
advantages of society, and resolve to return into the 
world to-morrow. The life of a solitary man will be 
certainlv miserable, but not certainly devout." 



RASSELAS. 57 

They heard his resolution with surprise, but, after a 
short pause, offered to conduct him to Cairo. He dug 
up a considerable treasure which he had hid among 
the rocks, and accompanied them to the city, on which, 
as he approached it, he gazed with rapture. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Happiness of a Life led according to Nature. 

Rasselas went often to an assembly of learned 
men, who met at stated times to unbend their minds, 
and compare their opinions. Their manners were 
somewhat coarse, but their conversation was instruc- 
tive, and their disputations acute, though sometimes 
too violent, and often continued till neither contro- 
vertist remembered upon what question they began. 
Some faults were almost general among them : every 
one was desirous to dictate to the rest, and every one 
was pleased to hear the genius or knowledge of another 
depreciated. 

In this assembly Rasselas was relating his inter- 
view with the hermit, and the wonder with which 
he heard him censure a course of life, which he had 
so deliberately chosen, and so laudably followed. The 
sentiments of the hearers were various. Some were 
of opinion, that the folly of his choice had been justly 
punished by condemnation to perpetual perseverance. 
One of the youngest among them, with great vehe- 
mence, pronounced him a hypocrite. Some talked 
of the right of society to the labour of individuals, 
and considered retirement as a desertion of duty. 
Others readily allowed, that there was a time when 
the claims of the publick were satisfied, and when a 
man might properly sequester himself, to review his 
life, and purify his heart. 



58 RASSELAS. 

One, who appeared more affected with the narra- 
tive than the rest, thought it likely that the hermit 
would, in a few years, go back to his retreat, and, per- 
haps, if shame did not restrain, or death intercept him, 
return once more from his retreat into the world : 
" For the hope of happiness," said he, " is so strongly 
impressed, that the longest experience is not able to 
efface it. Of the present state, whatever it be, we 
feel, and are forced to confess, the misery ; yet, when 
the same state is again at a distance, imagination 
paints it as desirable. But the time will surely come, 
when desire will be no longer our torment, and no 
man shall be wretched but by his own fault." 

" This," said a philosopher, who had heard him 
with tokens of great impatience, " is the present con- 
dition of a wise man. The time is already come, 
when none are wretched but by their own fault. No- 
thing is more idle, than to inquire after happiness, 
which nature has kindly placed within our reach. 
The way to be happy, is to live according to nature, 
in obedience to that universal and unalterable law 
with which every heart is originally impressed ; which 
is not written on it by precept, but engraven by desti- 
ny ; not instilled by education, but infused at our 
nativity. He that lives according to nature, will suf- 
fer nothing from the delusions of hope, or importunities 
of desire : he will receive and reject with equability 
of temper ; and act or suffer as the reason of things 
shall alternately prescribe. Other men may amuse 
themselves with subtle definitions, or intricate ratioci- 
nations. Let them learn to be wise by easier means f 
let them observe the hind of the forest, and the linnet 
of the grove : let them consider the life of animals, 
whose motions are regulated by instinct ; they obey 
their guide, and are happy. Let us therefore, at 
length, cease to dispute, and learn to live ; throw away 
the encumbrance of precepts, which they who utter 
them with so much pride and pomp do not under- 



RASSELAS. 50 

stand, and carry with us this simple and intelligi- 
ble maxim — That deviation from nature is deviation 
from happiness." 

When he had spoken, he looked round him with a 
placid air, and enjoyed the consciousness of his own 
beneficence. " Sir," said the prince with great modes- 
ty, " as I, like all the rest of mankind, am desirous of 
felicity, my closest attention has been fixed upon your 
discourse : I doubt not the truth of a position which a 
man so learned has so confidently advanced. Let me 
only know what it is to live according to nature ?" 

" When I find young men so humble and so dottle," 
said the philosopher, " I can deny them no information 
which my studies have enabled me to afford. To live 
according to nature, is to act always with due regard 
to the fitness arising from the relations and qualities of 
causes and effects ; to concur with the great and un- 
changeable scheme of universal felicity; to co-ope- 
rate with the general disposition and tendency of the 
present system of things." 

The prince soon found that this was one of the 
sages whom he should understand less as he heard 
him longer. He therefore bowed and was silent, and 
the philosopher, supposing him satisfied, and the rest 
vanquished, rose up and departed with the air of a 
man that had co-operated with the present system. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Prince and his Sister divide between them the 
Work of Observation. 

Rasselas returned home full of reflections, doubt- 
ful how to direct his future steps. Of the way to hap- 
piness he found the learned and simple equally igno- 
rant ; but, as he was yet young, he flattered himself 
that he had time remaining for more experiments, and 



60 RASSELAS. 

further inquiries. He communicated to Imlac his 
observations and his doubts, but was answered by him 
with new doubts, and remarks that gave him no com- 
fort. He therefore discoursed more frequently and 
freely with his sister, who had yet the same hope with 
himself, and always assisted him to give some reason 
why, though he had been hitherto frustrated, he might 
succeed at last. 

" We have hitherto," said she, " known but little of 
the world : we have never yet been either great or 
mean. In our own country, though we had royalty 
we had no power, and in this we have not yet seen 
the private recesses of domestick peace. Imlac favours 
not our search, lest we should in time find him mis- 
taken. We will divide the task between us : you 
shall try what is to be found in the splendour of courts, 
and I will range the shades of humbler life. Perhaps 
command and authority may be the supreme blessings, 
as they afford most opportunities of doing good : or, 
perhaps, what this world can give may be found in the 
modest habitations of middle fortune ; too low for 
great designs, and too high for penury and distress." 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Prince examines the Happiness of high Stations. 

Rasselas applauded the design, and appeared next 
day with a splendid retinue at the court of the Bassa. 
He was soon distinguished for his magnificence, and 
admitted, as a prince whose curiosity had brought him 
from distant countries, to an intimacy with the great 
officers, and frequent conversation with the Bassa 
himself. 

He was at first inclined to believe, that the man 
must be pleased with his own condition, whom all ap- 
proached with reverence, and heard with obedience, 






RASSELAS. 61 

and who had the power to extend his edicts to a whole 
kingdom. " There can be no pleasure," said he, "equal 
to that of feeling at once the joy of thousands all 
made happy by wise administration. Yet, since by 
the law of subordination this sublime delight can be 
in one nation but the lot of one, it is surely reasonable 
to think, that there is some satisfaction more popular 
and accessible, and that millions can hardly be sub- 
jected to the will of a single man, only to fill his parti- 
cular breast with incommunicable content." 

These thoughts were often in his mind, and he 
found no solution of the difficulty. But as presents 
and civilities gained him more familiarity, he found 
that almost every man who stood high in employment 
hated all the rest, and was hated by them, and that 
their lives were a continual succession of plots and 
detections, stratagems and escapes, faction and trea- 
chery. Many of those who surrounded the Bassa, were 
sent only to watch and report his conduct ; every 
tongue was muttering censure, and every eye wa3 
searching for a fault. 

At last the letters of revocation arrived, the Bassa 
was carried in chains to Constantinople, and his name 
was mentioned no more. 

u What are we now to think of the prerogatives of 
power," said Rasselas to his sister ; " is it without any 
efficacy to good ? or, is the subordinate degree only 
dangerous, and the supreme safe and glorious ? Is the 
Sultan the only happy man in his dominions ? or, is the 
Sultan himself subject to the torments of suspicion, 
and the dread of enemies ?" 

In a short time the second Bassa was deposed. The 
Sultan, that had advanced him, was murdered by the 
Janizaries, and his successor had other views and 
different favourites. 
G 



62 RASSELAS. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

- 

The Princess pursues Iter Inquiry with more Diligence 
than Success. 

The princess, in the mean time, insinuated herself 
into many families ; for there are few doors through 
which liberality, joined with good humour, cannot 
find its way. The daughters of many houses were 
airy and cheerful, but Nekayah had been too long 
accustomed to the conversation of Imlac and her 
brother, to be much pleased with childish levity, and 
prattle which had no meaning. She found their 
thoughts narrow, their wishes low, and their merri- 
ment often artificial. Their pleasures, poor as they 
were, could not be preserved pure, but were imbittered 
by petty competitions and worthless emulation. They 
were always jealous of the beauty of each other; of 
a quality to which solicitude can add nothing, and 
from which detraction can take nothing away. Many 
were in love with triflers like themselves ; and many 
fancied that they were in love, when in truth they 
were only idle. Their affection was not fixed on 
sense or virtue, and therefore seldom ended but in vexa- 
tion. Their grief, however, like their joy, was tran- 
sient ; every thing floated in their mind unconnected 
with the past or future, so that one desire easily gave 
way to another, as a second stone cast into the water 
effaces and confounds the circles of the first. 

With these girls she played as with inoffensive 
animals, and found them proud of her countenance, 
and weary of her company. 

But her purpose was to examine more deeply, and 
her affability easily persuaded the hearts that were 
swelling with sorrow, to discharge their secrets in her 
ear : and those whom hope flattered, or prosperity de- 
lighted, often courted her to partake their pleasures. 



RASSELAS. 63 

The princess and her brother commonly met in the 
evening in a private summer-house on the bank of the 
Nile, and related to each other the occurrences of the 
day. As they were sitting together, the princess cast 
her eyes upon the river that flowed before her. " An- 
swer," said she, " great father of waters, thou that 
roliest thy floods through eighty nations, to the invo- 
cations of the daughter of thy native king. Tell me 
if thou waterest, through all thy course, a single 
habitation from which thou dost not hear the murmurs 
of complaint ?" 

" You are then," said Rasselas, " not more success- 
ful in private houses than I have been in courts." " I 
have, since the last partition of our provinces," said 
the princess, " enabled myself to enter familiarly into 
many families, where there was the fairest show of 
prosperity and peace, and know not one house that is 
not haunted by some fury that destroys their quiet. 

u I did not seek ease among the poor, because I con- 
cluded that there it could not be found. But I saw 
many poor, whom I had supposed to live in affluence. 
Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances: 
it is often concealed in splendour, and often in extrava- 
gance. It is the care of a very great part of mankind 
to conceal their indigence from the rest ; they sup- 
port themselves by temporary expedients, and every 
day is lost in contriving for the morrow. 

" This, however, was an evil, which, though fre- 
quent, I saw with less pain, because I could relieve 
it. Yet some have refused my bounties, more offend- 
ed with my quickness to detect their wants, than 
pleased with my readiness to succour them : and 
others, whose exigencies compelled them to admit my 
kindness, have never been able to forgive their bene- 
factress. Many, however, have been sincerely grate- 
ful, without the ostentation of gratitude, or the hope 
of other favours." 



64 RASSELAS. 



CHAPTER XXVL 

The Princess continues her Remarks upon Private 
Life. 

Nekayah, perceiving her brother's attention fixed, 
proceeded in her narrative. 

" In families where there is or is not poverty, there 
is commonly discord : if a kingdom be, as Imlac tells 
us, a great family, a family likewise is a little king- 
dom, torn with factions, and exposed to revolutions. 
An unpractised observer expects the love of parents 
and children to be constant and equal ; but this kind- 
ness seldom continues beyond the years of infancy : in 
a short time the children become rivals to their pa- 
rents. Benefits are allayed by reproaches, and grati- 
tude debased by envy. 

" Parents and children seldom act in concert ; each 
child endeavours to appropriate the esteem or fondness 
of the parents, and the parents, with yet less tempta- 
tion, betray each other to their children : thus, some 
place their confidence in the father, and some in the 
mother, and, by degrees, the house is filled with arti- 
fices and feuds. 

" The opinions of children and parents, of tho 
young and the old, are naturally opposite, by the con- 
trary effects of hope and despondence, of expectation 
and experience, without crime or folly on either side. 
The colours of life in youth and age appear different, 
as the face of nature in spring and winter. And how 
can children credit the assertions of parents, which 
their own eyes show them to be false ? 

" Few parents act in such a manner as much to en- 
force their maxims by the credit of their lives. The 
old man trusts wholly to slow contrivance and gradual 
progression ; the youth expects to force his way by 
genius, vigour, and precipitance. The old man pays re- 



RASSELAS. 65 

gard to riches, and the youth reverences virtue. The 
old man deifies prudence, the youth commits himself 
to magnanimity and chance. The young man who 
intends no ill, believes that none is intended, and 
therefore acts with openness and candour ; but his 
father, having suffered the injuries of fraud, is impelled 
to suspect, and too often allured to practise it. Age 
looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth 
with contempt on the scrupulosity of age. Thus pa- 
rents and children, for the greatest part, live on to 
love less and less ; and, if those whom nature has thus 
closely united are the torments of each other, where 
shall we look for tenderness and consolation ?" 

" Surely," said the prince, " you must have been 
unfortunate in your choice of acquaintance : I am un- 
willing to believe that the most tender of all relations 
is thus impeded in its effects by natural necessity." 

" Domestick discord," answered she, " is not in- 
evitably and fatally necessary, but yet it is not easily 
avoided. We seldom see that a whole family is vir- 
tuous : the good and evil cannot well agree, and the 
evil can yet less agree with one another ; even the 
virtuous fall sometimes to variance, when their vir- 
tues are of different kinds, and tending to extremes. 
In general, those parents have most reverence who 
most deserve it, for he that lives well cannot be de- 
spised. 

" Many other evils infest private life. Some are 
the slaves of servants whom they have trusted with 
their affairs. Some are kept in continual anxiety by 
the caprice of rich relations, whom they cannot please, 
and dare not offend. Some husbands are imperious, 
and some wives perverse ; and, as it is always more 
easy to do evil than good, though the wisdom or vir- 
tue of one can very rarely make many happy, the 
folly or vice of one may often make many miserable." 

" If such be the general effect of marriage," said 
the prince, " I shall, for the future, think it danger- 



66 RASSELAS. 

ous to connect my interest with that of another, lest I 

should be unhappy by my partner's fault." 

" I have met," said the princess, " with many who 
live single for that reason ; but I never found that 
their prudence ought to raise envy. They dream 
away their time without friendship, without fondness, 
and are driven to rid themselves of the day, for which 
they have no use, by childish amusements or vicious 
delights. They act as beings under the constant sense 
of some known inferiority, that fills their minds with 
rancour, and their tongues with censure. They are 
peevish at home, and malevolent abroad ; and, as the 
outlaws of human nature, make it their business and 
their pleasure to disturb that society which debars 
them from its privileges. To live without feeling or 
exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to 
the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the 
balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude ; it 
is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage 
has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures." 

" What then is to be done ?" said Rasselas ; " the 
more we inquire, the less we can resolve. Surely he 
is most likely to please himself, that has no other in- 
clination to regard. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Disquisition vpon Greatness. 
The conversation had a short pause. The prince 
having considered his sister's observations, told her, 
that she had surveyed life with prejudice, and supposed 
misery where she did not find it. " Your narrative," 
pays he, " throws yet a darker gloom upon the pros- 
pects of futurity : the predictions of Imlac were but 
faint sketches of the evils painted by Nekayah. I 
have been lately convinced that quiet is not the daugh- 



RASSELAS. 6Z 

ter of grandeur or of power ; that her presence is not 
to be bought by wealth, nor enforced by conquest. It 
is evident, that as any man acts in a wider compass, 
he must be more exposed to opposition from enmity, 
or miscarriage from chance ; whoever has many to 
please or to govern, must use the ministry of many 
agents, some of whom will be wicked, and some 
ignorant ; by some he will be misled, and by others 
betrayed. If he gratifies one he will offend another ; 
those that are not favoured will think themselves in- 
jured ; and, since favours can be conferred but upon 
few, the greater number will be always discontented." 

" The discontent," said the princess, " which is thus 
unreasonable, I hope that I shall always have spirit to 
* despise, and you power to repress." 

" Discontent," answered Rasselas, " will not always 
be without reason under the most just and vigilant 
administration of publick affairs. None, however atten- 
tive, can always discover that merit which indigence 
or faction may happen to obscure ; and none, however 
powerful, can always reward it. Yet he that sees in- 
feriour desert advanced above him, will naturally im- 
pute that preference to partiality or caprice ; and, in- 
deed, it can scarcely be hoped that any man, however 
magnanimous by nature, or exalted by condition, will 
be able to persist for ever in the fixed and inexorable 
justice of distribution : He will sometimes indulge his 
own affections, and sometimes those of his favour- 
ites ; he will permit some to please him who can never 
serve him ; he will discover in those whom he loves, 
qualities which, in reality, they do not possess; and to 
those from whom he receives pleasure, he will, in his 
turn, endeavour to give it. Thus will recommenda- 
tions sometimes prevail which were purchased by 
money, or by the more destructive bribery of flattery 
and servility. 

" He that has much to do will do something wrong, 
and of that wrong must suffer the consequonces; and, if 



68 RASSELAS. 

it were possible that he should always act rightly, yet, 
when such numbers are to judge of his conduct, the 
bad will censure and obstruct him by malevolence, and 
the good sometimes by mistake. 

" The highest stations cannot therefore hope to be 
the abodes of happiness, which I would willingly be- 
lieve to have fled from thrones and palaces to seats of 
humble privacy and placid obscurity. For what can 
hinder the satisfaction, or intercept Jhe expectations, 
of him whose abilities are adequate to his employ- 
ments, who sees with his own eyes the whole circuit 
of his influence, who chooses by his own knowledge 
all whom he trusts, and whom none are tempted to de- 
ceive by hope or fear ? Surely he has nothing to do 
but to love and to be loved, to be virtuous and to be 
happy." 

" Whether perfect happiness would be procured by 
perfect goodness," said Nekayah, " this world will 
never afford an opportunity of deciding. But this, at 
least, may be maintained, that we do not always find 
visible happiness in proportion to visible virtue. All 
natural, and almost all political evils, are incident alike 
to the bad and good : they are confounded in the mi- 
sery of a famine, and not much distinguished in the 
fury of a faction ; they sink together in a tempest, and 
are driven together from their country by invaders. 
All that virtue can afford is quietness of conscience, a 
steady prospect of a happier state : this may enable 
us to endure calamity with patience ; but remember 
that patience must suppose pain." 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Rasselas and Nekayah continue their Conversation. 
" Dear Princess," said Rasselas, " you fall into the 
common errours of exaggeratory declamation, by pro- 



RASSELAS. 69 

ducing, in a familiar disquisition, examples of national 
calamities, and scenes of extensive misery, which are 
found in books rather than in the world, and which, as 
they are horrid, are ordained to be rare. Let us not 
imagine evils which we do not feel, nor injure life by 
misrepresentations. I cannot bear that querulous elo- 
quence which threatens every city with a siege like 
that of Jerusalem, that makes famine attend on every 
flight of locusts, and suspends pestilence on the wing 
of every blast that issues from the south. 

" On necessary and inevitable evils, which overwhelm 
kingdoms at once, all disputation is vain : when they 
happen, they must be endured. But it is evident, that 
these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded 
than felt ; thousands and ten thousands flourish in 
youth, and wither in age, without the knowledge of 
any other than domestick evils, and share the same 
pleasures and vexations, whether their kings are mild 
or cruel, whether the armies of their country pursue 
their enemies or retreat before them. While courts 
are disturbed with intestine competitions, and am- 
bassadors are negotiating in foreign countries, tho 
smith still plies his anvil, and the husbandman drives 
his plough forward ; the necessaries of life are requir- 
ed and obtained ; and the successive business of the 
seasons continues to make its wonted revolutions. 

" Let us cease to consider what, perhaps, may 
never happen, and what, when it shall happen, will 
laugh at human speculation. We will not endeavour 
to modify the motions of the elements, or to fix the 
destiny of kingdoms. It is our business to consider 
what beings like us may perform ; each labouring for 
his own happiness, by promoting within his circle, 
however narrow, the happiness of others. 

" Marriage is evidently the dictate of nature ; men 
and women are made to be companions of each other, 
and therefore I cannot be persuaded but that marriage 
is one of the means of happiness." 



70 RASSELAS. 

" I know not," said the princess, " whether marriage 
be more than one of the innumerable modes of human 
misery. When I see and reckon the various forms of 
connubial infelicity, the unexpected causes of lasting- 
discord, the diversities of temper, the oppositions of 
opinion, the rude collisions of contrary desire where 
both are urged by violent impulses, the obstinate con- 
tests of disagreeable virtues whore both are supported 
by consciousness of good intention ; I am sometimes 
disposed to think with the severer casuists of most 
nations, that marriage is rather permitted than ap- 
proved, and that none, but by the instigation of a pas- 
sion too much indulged, entangle themselves with in- 
dissoluble compacts." 

" You seem to forget," replied Rasselas, " that you 
have, even no\v ; .represented celibacy as less happy than 
marriage. Both conditions may be bad, but they can- 
not both be worst. Thus it happens when wrong 
opinions are entertained, that they mutually destroy 
each other, and leave the mind open to truth." 

" I did not expect," answered the princess, " to hear 
that imputed to falsehood which is the consequence 
only of frailty. To the mind, as to the eye, it is diffi- 
cult to compare with exactness objects vast in their 
extent, and various in their parts. Where we see or 
conceive the whole at once, we readily note the dis- 
criminations, and decide the preference : but of two 
systems, of which neither can be surveyed by any hu- 
man being in its full compass of magnitude and mul- 
tiplicity of complication, where is the wonder, that, 
judging of the whole by parts, I am alternately affected 
by one and the other as either presses on my memory 
or fancy ? We differ from ourselves just as we differ 
from each other, when we see only part of the ques- 
tion, as in the multifarious relations of politicks and 
morality ; but when we perceive the whole at once, as 
in numerical computations, all agree in one judgment, 
and none ever varies his opinion" 



RASSELAS. 71 

" Let us not add," said the prince, " to the other 
evils of life, the bitterness of controversy, nor endea- 
vour to vie with each other in subtilties of argu- 
ment. We are employed in a search, of which both 
are equally to enjoy the success, or surfer by the mis- 
carriage ; it is therefore fit that we assist each other. 
You surely conclude too hastily from the infelicity of 
marriage against its institution : will not the misery 
of life prove equally that life cannot be the gift of 
Heaven ? The world must be peopled by marriage, or 
peopled without it. 

" How the world is to be peopled," returned Ne- 
kayah, " is not my care, and needs not be yours. I see 
no danger that the present generation should omit to 
leave successors behind them : We are not now in- 
quiring for the world, but for ourselves." 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

The Debate on Marriage continued. 

" The good of the whole," says Rasselas, " is the 
same with the good of all its parts. If marriage be 
best for mankind, it must be evidently best for indivi- 
duals, or a permanent and necessary duty must be the 
cause of evil, and some must be inevitably sacrificed 
to the convenience of others. In the estimate which 
you have made of the two states, it appears that the 
incommodities of a single life are, in a great mea- 
sure, necessary and certain, but those of the conjugal 
state accidental and avoidable. 

" I cannot forbear to flatter myself, that prudence 
and benevolence will make marriage happy. The 
general folly of mankind is the cause of general com 
plaint. What can be expected but disappointment and 
repentance from a choice made in the immaturity of 
youth, in the ardour of desire, without judgment, 
without foresight, without inquiry after conformity of 



72 RASSELAS. 

opinions, similarity of manners, rectitude of judgment, 

or purity of sentiment ? 

" Such is the common process of marriage. A 
youth or maiden meeting by chance, or brought to- 
gether by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civi- 
lities, go home, and dream of one another. Having 
little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they 
find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and 
therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. 
They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary 
blindness before had concealed ; they wear out life in 
altercations, and charge nature with cruelty. 

" From those early marriages proceeds likewise the 
rivalry of parents and children : The son is eager to 
enjoy the world before the father is willing to forsake 
it, and there is hardly room at once for two genera- 
tions. The daughter begins to bloom before the mo- 
ther can be content to fade, and neither can forbear to 
wish for the absence of the other. "/ 

" Surely all these evils may be avoided by that deli- 
beration and delay which prudence prescribes to irre- 
vocable choice. In the variety and jollity of youthful 
pleasures, life may be well enough supported without 
the help of a partner. Longer time will increase expe- 
rience, and wider views will allow better opportunities 
of inquiry and selection : one advantage, at least, will 
be certain — the parents will be visibly older than their 
children." 

H What reason cannot collect," said Nekayah, " and 
what experiment has not yet taught, can be known 
only from the report of others. I have been told that 
late marriages are not eminently happy. This is a 
question too important to be neglected, and I have often 
prcposcd it to those, whose accuracy of remark, and 
comprehensiveness of knowledge, made their suffrages 
worthy of regard. They have generally determined* 
that it is dangerous for a man and woman to suspend 
their fate upon each other, at a time when opinions 



RASSELAS. 73 

arc fixed, and habits are established ; when friendships 
have been contracted on both sides, when life has been' 
planned into method, and the mind has long enjoyed 
the contemplation of its own prospects. 

" It is scarcely possible that two travelling through 
the world under the conduct of chance, should have 
been both directed to the same path ; and it will not often 
happen that either will quit the track which custom 
has made pleasing. When the desultory levity of 
youth has settled into regularity, it is soon succeeded 
by pride ashamed to yield, or obstinacy delighting to 
contend. And even though mutual esteem produces 
mutual desire to please, time itself, as it modifies 
unchangeably the external mien, determines likewise 
the direction of the passions, and gives an inflexible 
rigidity to the manners. Long customs are not easily 
broken : He that attempts to change the course of his 
own life, very often labours in vain ; and how shall we 
do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for 
ourselves ?'• 

" But surely," interposed the prince, " you suppose 
the chief motive of choice forgotten or neglected. 
Whenever I shall seek a wife, it shall be my first 
question, whether she be willing to be led by reason ?" 

" Thus it is," said Nekayah, " that philosophers are 
deceived. There are a thousand familiar disputes 
which reason never can decide ; questions that elude 
investigation, and make logick ridiculous ; cases where 
something must be done, and where little can be said. 
Consider the state of mankind, and inquire how few 
can be supposed to act upon any occasions, whether 
small or great, with all the reasons of action present 
to their minds. Wretched would be the pair above all 
names of wretchedness, who should bo doomed to adjust 
by reason, every morning, all the minute detail of a 
domestick day. 

" Those who marry at an advanced age, will proba- 
bly escape the encroachments of their children ; but 
7 



74 RASSELAS. 

in diminution of this advantage, they will be likely to 
leave them, ignorant and helpless, to a guardian's 
mercy : or, if that should not happen, they must at least 
go out of the world before they see those whom they 
love best either wise or great. 

" From their children, if they have less to fear, they 
have less also to hope ; and they lose without equiva- 
lent, the joys of early love, and the convenience of 
uniting with manners pliant, and minds susceptible of 
new impressions, which . might wear away their 
dissimilitudes by long cohabitation, as soft bodies, by 
continual attrition, conform their surfaces to each 
other. 

" I believe it will be found, that those who marry 
late are best pleased with their children, and those who 
marry early with their partners." 

" The union of these two affections," said Rasselas, 
" would produce all that could be wished. Perhaps 
there is a time when marriage might unite them, a 
time neither too early for the father, nor too late for 
the husband." 

" Every hour," answered the princess, " confirms 
my prejudice in favour of the position so often uttered 
by the mouth of Imlac, ' That nature sets her gifts on 
the right hand and on the left.' Those conditions 
which flatter hope and attract desire, are so constituted, 
that as we approach one, we recede from another. 
There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, 
but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at 
too great a distance to reach either. This is often the 
fate of long consideration ; he does nothing who endea- 
vours to do more than is allowed to humanity. Flatter 
not yourself with contrarieties of pleasure. Of the 
blessings set before you make your choice, and be 
content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn 
while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of 
the spring ; no man can, at the same time, fill his cup 
from the source and from the mouth of the Nile." 



RASSELAS. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

Imlac enters, and changes the Conversation. 
Here Imlac entered, and interrupted them. " Im- 
lac," said Rasselas, " I have been taking from the 
princess the dismal history of private life, and am 
almost discouraged from further search." 

" It seems to me," said Imlac, " that while you are 
making the choice of life, you neglect to live. You 
wander about a single city, which, however large and 
diversified, can now afford few novelties, and forget 
that you are in a country famous among the earliest 
monarchies for the power and wisdom of its inhabitants ; 
a country where the sciences first dawned that illumi- 
nate the world, and beyond which the arts cannot be 
traced of civil society or domestick life. 

" The old Egyptians have left behind them monu- 
ments of industry and power, before which all Europe- 
an magnificence is confessed to fade away. The ruins 
of their architecture are the schools of modern build- 
ers, and from the wonders which time has spared, we 
may conjecture, though uncertainly, what it has de 
stroyed." 

" My curiosity," said Rasselas, " does not very 
strongly lead me to survey piles of stone or mounds 
of earth : my business is with man. I came hither not 
to measure fragments of temples, or trace choked 
aqueducts, but to look upon the various scenes of the 
present world." 

" The things that are now before us," said the prin- 
cess, " require attention, and deserve it. What have 
I to do with the heroes or the monuments of ancient 
times ? with times which never can return, and heroes, 
whose form of life was different from all that the pre- 
sent condition of mankind requires or allows ?" 



76 RASSELAS. 

" To know any thing," returned the poet, " we must 
know its effects ; to see men we must see their works, 
that we may learn what reason has dictated, or passion 
has incited, and find what are the most powerful motives 
of action. To judge rightly of the present, we must 
oppose it to the past ; for all judgment is comparative, 
and of the future nothing can be known. The truth 
is, that no mind is much employed upon the present : 
recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our 
moments. Our passions are joy and grief, love and 
hatred, hope and fear. Of joy and grief the past is 
the object, and the future of hope and fear ; even love 
and hatred respect the past, for the cause must have 
been before the effect. 

" The present state of things is the consequence of 
the former, and it is natural to inquire what were the 
sources of the good that we enjoy, -or the evil that we 
suffer. If we act only for ourselves, to neglect the 
study of history is not prudent : if we are entrusted 
with the care of others, it is not just. Ignorance, when 
it is voluntary, is criminal ; and he may properly be 
charged with evil, who refused to learn how he might 
prevent it. 

" There is no part of history so generally useful as 
that which relates the progress of the human mind, 
the gradual improvement of reason, the successive 
advances of science, the vicissitudes of learning and 
ignorance, which are the light and darkness of thinking 
beings, the extinction and resuscitation of arts, and the' 
revolutions of the intellectual world. If accounts of 
battles and invasions are peculiarly the business of 
princes, the useful or elegant arts are not to be neglect- 
ed ; those who have kingdoms to govern, have under- 
standings to cultivate. 

" Example is always more efficacious than precept. 
A soldier is formed in war, and a painter must copy 
pictures. In this, contemplative life has the advan- 



RASSELAS. 77 

tage : great actions are seldom seen, but the labours 
of art are always at hand for those who desire to know 
what art has been able to perform. 

" When the eye or the imagination is struck with 
an uncommon work, the next transition of an active 
mind is to the means by which it was performed. 
Here begins the true use of such contemplation : we 
enlarge our comprehension by new ideas, and perhaps 
recover some art lost to mankind, or learn what is less 
perfectly known in our own country. At least we 
compare our own with former times, and either 
rejoice at our improvements, or, what is the first mo- 
tion towards good, discover our defects." 

" I am willing," said the prince, " to see all that 
can deserve my search." " And I," said the princess, 
" shall rejoice to learn something of the manners of 
antiquity." 

" The most pompous monument of Egyptian great- 
ness, and one of the most bulky works of manual in- 
dustry," said Imlac, " are the Pyramids ; fabricks 
raised before the time of history, and of which the 
earliest narratives afford us only uncertain traditions. 
Of these the greatest is still standing, very little in- 
jured by time." 

" Let us visit them to-morrow," said Nekayah, " I 
have often heard of the Pyramids, and shall not rest 
till I have seen them within and without with my 
own eyes." 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

They visit the Pyramids. 
The resolution being thus taken, they set out the 
next day. They laid tents upon their camels, being 
resolved to stay among the Pyramids till their curiosi- 
ty was fully satisfied. They travelled gently, turned- 
7* 



76 RASSELAS. 

aside to every thing remarkable, stopped from time to 
time and conversed with the inhabitants, and observed 
the various appearances of towns ruined and inhabit- 
ed, of wild and cultivated nature. 

When they came to the great Pyramid, they were 
astonished at the extent of the base, and the height of 
the top. Imlac explained to them the principles upon 
which the pyramidal form was chosen for a fabrick in- 
tended to co-extend its duration with that of the 
world ; he showed that its gradual diminution gave it 
such stability, as defeated all the common attacks of 
the elements, and could scarcely be overthrown by 
earthquakes themselves, the least resistible of natural 
violence. A concussion that should shatter the Pyra- 
mid would threaten the dissolution of the continent. 

They measured all its dimensions, and pitched 
their tents at its foot. Next day they prepared to 
enter its interiour apartments, and having hired the 
common guides, climbed up to the first passage, 
when the favourite of the princess, looking into the 
cavity, stepped back and trembled. " Pekuah," said 
the princess, " of what art thou afraid ?" " Of the 
narrow entrance," answered the lady, " and of the 
dreadful gloom. I dare not enter a place which must 
surely be inhabited by unquiet souls. The original 
possessors of these dreadful vaults will start up before 
us, and perhaps shut us in for ever." She spoke, and 
threw her arms round the neck of her mistress. 

" If all your fear be of apparitions," said the prince, 
" I will promise your safety : There is no danger from 
the dead ; he that is once buried will be seen no 
more." 

" That the dead are seen no more," said Imlac, " I 
will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent 
and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. 
There is no people, rude or learned, among whom 
apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. 
This opinion, which perhaps prevails as far aa hu- 



RASSELAS. 79 

man nature is diffused, could become universal only 
by its truth : those, that never heard of one another, 
would not have agreed in a tale which nothing but ex- 
perience can make credible. That it is doubted by 
single cavillers, can very little weaken the general evi- 
dence ; and some, who deny it with their tongues, con- 
fess it by their fears. 

" Yet I do not mean to add new terrours to those 
which have alreadly seized upon Pekuah. There can 
be no reason why spectres should haunt the Pyramid 
more than other places, or why they should have 
power or will to hurt innocence and purity. Our en- 
trance is no violation of their privileges ; we can take 
nothing from them, how then can we offend them ?" 

" My dear Pekuah," said the princess, " I will 
always go before you, and Imlac shall follow you. 
Remember that you are the companion of the princess 
of Abyssinia." 

" If the princess is pleased that her servant should 
die," returned the lady, " let her command some death 
less dreadful than enclosure in this horrid cavern. 
You know I dare not disobey you : I must go if you 
command me ; but, if I once enter, I never shall come 
back." 

The princess saw that her fear was too strong for 
expostulation or reproof, and embracing her, told her 
that she should stay in the tent till their return. Pe- 
kuah was yet not satisfied, but entreated the princess 
not to pursue so dreadful a purpose as that of entering 
the recesses of the Pyramid. " Though I cannot 
teach courage," said Nekayah, " I must not learn 
cowardice ; nor leave at last undone what I came 
hither only to do." 



80 RASSELAS 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

They enter the Pyramid. . 

Pekuah descended to the tents, and the rest enter- 
ed the Pyramid : They passed through the galleries, 
surveyed the vaults of marble, and examined the chest 
in which the body of the founder is supposed to have 
been reposited. They then sat down in one of the 
most spacious chambers to rest a while before they 
attempted to return. 

" We have now," said Imlac, " gratified our minds 
with an exact view of the greatest work of man, ex- 
cept the wall of China. 

" Of the wall it is very easy to assign the motive. 
It secured a wealthy and timorous nation from the in- 
cursions of barbarians, whose unskilfulness in arts 
made it easier for them to supply their wants by ra- 
pine than by industry, and who, from time to time, 
poured in upon the habitations of peaceful commerce, 
as vultures descend upon domestick fowl. Their ce- 
lerity and fierceness made the wall necessary, and 
their ignorance made it efficacious. 

" But for the Pyramids no reason has ever been 
given adequate to the cost and labour of the work. 
The narrowness of the chambers proves that it could 
afford no retreat from enemies, and treasures might 
have been reposited at far less expense with equal 
security. It seems to have been erected only in com- 
pliance with that hunger of imagination which preys 
incessantly upon life, and must be always appeased 
by some employment. Those who have already all 
that they can enjoy, must enlarge their desires. He 
that has built for use, till use is supplied, must begin 
to build for vanity, and extend his plan to the utmost 
power of human performance, that he may not be soon 
reduced to form another wish. 



RASSELAS. 81 

" I consider this mighty structure as a monument of 
the insufficiency of human enjoyments. A king, 
whose power is unlimited, and whose treasures sur- 
mount all real and imaginary wants, is compelled to 
solace, by the erection of a Pyramid, the satiety of 
dominion and tastelessness of pleasures, and to amuse 
the tediousness of declining life, by seeing thousands 
labouring without end, and one stone, for no purpose, 
laid upon another. Whoever thou art, that, not con- 
tent with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in 
royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or 
riches can feed the appetite of novelty with perpetual 
gratifications, survey the Pyramids, and confess thy 
folly !" 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

The Princess meets with an unexpected Misfortune. 

They rose up, and returned through the cavity at 
which they had entered, and the princess prepared for 
her favourite a long narrative of dark labyrinths, and 
costly rooms, and of the different impressions which 
the varieties of the way had made upon her. But 
when they came to their train, they found every one 
silent and dejected : the men discovered shame and 
fear in their countenances, and the women were weep- 
ing in the tents. 

What had happened they did not try to conjecture, 
but immediately inquired. " You had scarcely enter- 
ed into the Pyramid," said one of the attendants, 
" when a troop of Arabs rushed upon us : we were too 
few to resist them, and too slow to escape. They 
were about to search the tents, set us on our camels, 
and drive us along before them, when the approach of 
some Turkish horsemen put them to flight ; but they 
seized the lady Pekuah with her two maids, and car- 



82 RASSELAS. 

ried them away. The Turks are now pursuing them 
by our instigation, but I fear they will not be able to 
overtake them." 

The princess was overpowered with surprise and 
grief. Rasselas, in the first heat of his resentment, 
ordered his servants to follow him, and prepared to 
pursue the robbers with his sabre in his hand. " Sir," 
said Imlac, " what can you hope from violence or va- 
lour ? the Arabs are mounted on horses trained to bat- 
tle and retreat ; we have only beasts of burden. By 
leaving our present station we may lose the princess, 
but cannot hope to regain Pekuah." 

In a short time the Turks returned, having not been 
able to reach the enemy. The princess burst out into 
new lamentations, and Rasselas could scarcely forbear 
to reproach them with cowardice ; but Imlac was of 
opinion, that the escape of the Arabs was no addition 
to their misfortune, for perhaps they would have killed 
their captives rather than have resigned them. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

They return to Cairo without Pekuah. 

There was nothing to be hoped from longer stay. 
They returned to Cairo repenting of their curiosity, 
censuring the negligence of the government, lament- 
ing their own rashness which had neglected to pro- 
cure a guard, imagining many expedients by which 
the loss of Pekuah might have been prevented, and 
resolving to do something for her recovery, though 
none could rind any thing proper to be done. 

Nekayah retired to her chamber, where her women 
attempted to comfort her, by telling her that all had 
their troubles, and that lady Pekuah had enjoyed much 
happiness in the world for a long time, and might rea- 
sonably expect a change of fortune. They hoped that 



RASSELAS. 83 

some good would befall her wheresoever she was, and 
that their mistress would find another friend who 
might supply her place. 

The princess made them no answer, and they con- 
tinued the form of condolence, not much grieved in 
their hearts that the favourite was lost. 

Next day the prince presented to the Bassa a me- 
morial of the wrong which he had suffered, and a 
petition for redress. The Bassa threatened to punish 
the robbers, but did not attempt to catch them, nor in- 
deed could any account or description be given by 
which he might direct the pursuit. 

It soon appeared that nothing would be done by 
authority. Governours, being accustomed to hear of 
more crimes than they can punish, and more wrongs 
than they can redress, set themselves at ease by indis- 
criminate negligence, and presently forget the request 
when they lose sight of the petitioner. 

Imlac then endeavoured to gain some intelligence 
by private agents. He found many who pretended to 
an exact knowledge of all the haunts of the Arabs, and 
to regular correspondence with their chiefs, and who 
readily undertook the recovery of Pekuah. Of these, 
some were furnished with money for their journey, 
and came back no more ; some were liberally paid for 
accounts which a few days discovered to be false. But 
the princess would not suffer any means, however im- 
probable, to be left untried. While she was doing 
something, she kept her hope alive. As one expe- 
dient failed, another was suggested ; when one mes- 
senger returned unsuccessful, another was despatched 
to a different quarter. 

Two months had now passed, and of Pekuah no- 
thing had been heard : the hopes which they had en- 
deavoured lo raise in each other grow more languid 
and the princess, when she saw nothing more to be 
tried, sunk down inconsolable in hopeless dejection. 
A thousand times she reproached herself with the easy 



84 RASSELAS. 

compliance Dy which she permitted her favourite to 
stay behind her. " Had not my fondness," said she, 
" lessened my authority, Pekuah had not dared to talk 
of her terrours. She ought to have feared me more 
than spectres. A severe look would have overpowered 
her ; a peremptory command would have compelled 
obedience. Why did foolish indulgence prevail upon 
me ? Why did I not speak, and refuse to hear ?" 

" Great princess," said Imlac, " do not reproach 
yourself for your virtue, or consider that as blameable 
by which evil has accidentally been caused. Your ten- 
derness for the timidity of Pekuah was generous and 
kind. When we act according to our duty, we com- 
mit the event to Him by whose laws our actions are 
governed, and who will suffer none to be finally pu- 
nished for obedience. When, in prospect of some good, 
whether natural or moral, we break the rules pre- 
scribed us, we withdraw from the direction of superi- 
our wisdom, and take all consequences upon ourselves. 
Man cannot so far know the connexion of causes and 
events, as that he may venture to do wrong in order to 
do right. When we pursue our end by lawful means, 
we may always console our miscarriage by the hope 
of future recompense. When we consult only our 
own policy, and attempt to find a nearer way to good, 
by overleaping the settled boundaries of right and 
wrong, we cannot be happy even by success, because 
we cannot escape the consciousness of our. fault ; but, 
if we miscarry, the disappointment is irremediably im- 
bittered. How comfortless is the sorrow of him who 
feels at once the pangs of guilt, and the vexation of 
calamity which guilt has brought upon him ! 

" Consider, princess, what would have been your 
condition if the lady Pekuah had entreated to accom- 
pany you, and, being compelled to stay in the tenttf, 
had been carried away ; or, how would you have borne 
the thought, if you had forced her into the Pyramid, 
and she had died before you in agonies of terrour ? " 



RASSELAS. 85 

"Had either happened," said Nekayah, "I could 
not have endured life till now; I should have been 
tortured to madness by the remembrance of such 
cruelty, or must have pined away in abhorrence of my- 
self." 

" This at least," said Imlac, u is the present reward 
of virtuous conduct, that no unlucky consequence can 
oblige us to repent it." 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

The Princess languishes for want of Pekuah. 

Nekayah being thus reconciled to herself, found 
that no evil is insupportable but that which is accom- 
panied with consciousness of wrong. She was from 
that time delivered from the violence of tempestuous 
sorrow, and sunk into silent pensiveness and gloomy 
tranquillity. She sat from morning to evening recol- 
lecting all that had been done or said by her Pekuah, 
treasured up with care every trifle on which Pekuah 
had set an accidental value, and which might recall to 
mind any little incident or careless conversation. The 
sentiments of her, whom she now expected to see no 
more, were treasured in her memory as rules of life, 
and she deliberated to no other end than to conjecture 
on any occasion what would have been the opinion 
and counsel of Pekuah. 

The women by whom she was attended, knew no- 
thing of her real condition, and therefore she could 
not talk to them but with caution and reserve. She 
began to remit her curiosity, having no great care to 
collect notions which she had no convenience of utter- 
ing. Rasselas endeavoured first to comfort, and after- 
wards to divert her ; he hired musicians, to whom she 
seemed to listen, but did not hear them ; and procured 
8 



86 RASSELAS. 

masters to instruct her in various arts, whose lectures, 
when they visited her again, were again to be repeated. 
She had lost her taste of pleasure, and her ambition of 
excellence. And her mind, though forced into short 
excursions, always recurred to the image of her friend. 

Imlac was every morning earnestly enjoined to re- 
new his inquiries, and was asked every night whether 
he had yet heard of Pekuah, till, not being able to re- 
turn the princess the answer that she desired, he was 
less and less willing to come into her presence. She 
observed his backwardness, and commanded him to 
attend her. " You are not," said she, " to confound 
impatience with resentment, or to suppose that I 
charge you with negligence, because I repine at your 
unsuccessfulness. I do not much wonder at your ab- 
sence ; I know that the unhappy are never pleasing, 
and that all naturally avoid the contagion of misery. 
To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched 
and the happy ; for who would cloud, by adventitious 
grief, the short gleams of gayety which life allows us ? 
or who, that is struggling under his own evils, will add 
to them the miseries of another ? 

" The time is at hand, when none shall be disturbed 
any longer by the sighs of Nekayah : my search after 
happiness is now at an end. I am resolved to retire 
from the world with all its flatteries and deceits, and 
will hide myself in solitude without any other care 
than to compose my thoughts, and regulate my hours 
by a constant succession of innocent occupations, till, 
with a mind purified from all earthly desires, I shall 
enter into that state to which all are hastening, and 
in which I hope again to enjoy the friendship of Pe- 
kuah." 

" Do not entangle your mind," said Imlac, " by ir- 
revocable determinations, nor increase the burden of 
life by a voluntary accumulation of misery : the weari- 
ness of retirement will continue or increase when the 



RASSELAS. 87 

loss of Pekuah is forgotten. That you have been de- 
prived of one pleasure, is no very good reason for re- 
jection of the rest." 

" Since Pekuah was taken from me," said the prin- 
cess, " I have no pleasure to reject or to retain. She 
that has no one to love or trust, has little to hope. 
She wants the radical principle of happiness. We 
may perhaps allow, that what satisfaction this world 
can afford, must arise from the conjunction of wealth, 
knowledge, and goodness : Wealth is nothing but as it 
is bestowed, and knowledge nothing but as it is commu- 
nicated : they must therefore be imparted to others ; 
and to whom could I now delight to impart them ? 
Goodness affords the only comfort which can be en- 
joyed without a partner, and goodness may be practis- 
ed in retirement." 

u How far solitude may admit goodness, or advance 
it, I shall not," replied Imlac, " dispute at present. 
Remember the confession of the pious hermit. You 
will wish to return into the world, when the image 
of your companion has left your thoughts." " That 
time," said Neka3 r ah, " will never come. The gene- 
rous frankness, the modest obsequiousness, and the 
faithful secrecy of my dear Pekuah, will always be 
more missed, as I shall live longer to see vice and 
folly." 

" The state of a mind oppressed with a sudden 
calamity," said Imlac, " is like that of the fabulous in- 
habitants of the new-created earth, who, when the first 
night came upon them, supposed that day would never 
return. When the clouds of sorrow gather over us, 
we see nothing beyond them, nor can imagine how 
they will be dispelled : yet a new day succeeded to 
the night, and sorrow is never long without a dawn of 
ease. But they who restrain themselves from receiv- 
ing comfort, do as the savages would have done, had, 
they put out their eyes when it was dark. Our minds, 
like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is 



88 RASSELAS. 

hourly lost, and something acquired. To lose much 
at once is inconvenient to either, but while the vital 
powers remain uninjured, nature will find the means 
of reparation. Distance has the same effect on the 
mind as on the eye ; and while we glide along the 
stream of time, whatever we leave behind us is always 
lessening, and that which we approach increasing in 
magnitude. Do not suffer life to stagnate ; it will 
grow muddy for want of motion: commit yourself 
again to the current of the world ; Pekuah will vanish 
by degrees ; you will meet in your way some other 
favourite, or learn to diffuse yourself in general con- 
versation." 

" At least," said the prince, " do not despair before 
all remedies have been tried : the inquiry after the 
unfortunate lady is still continued, and shall be carried 
on with yet greater diligence, on condition that you 
will promise to wait a year for the event, without any 
unalterable resolution." 

Nekayah thought this a reasonable demand, and 
made the promise to her brother, who had been advised 
by Imlac to require it. Imlac had indeed no great 
hope of regaining Pekuah, but he supposed, that if he 
could secure the interval of a year, the princess 
would be then in no danger of a cloister. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Pekuah is still remembered. The Progress of 
Sorroic. 
Nekayah, seeing that nothing was omitted for the 
recovery of her favourite, and having, by her promise, 
set her intention of retirement at a distance, began 
imperceptibly to return to common cares and Com- 
mon pleasures. She rejoiced without her own consent 
at the suspension of her sorrows, and sometimes 



RASSELAS. 89 

caught herself with indignation in the act of turning 
away her mind from the remembrance of her, whom 
yet she resolved never to forget. 

She then appointed a certain hour of the day for 
meditation on the merits and fondness of Pekuah, and 
for some weeks retired constantly at the time fixed, 
and returned with her eyes swollen and her counte- 
nance clouded. By degrees she grew less scrupulous, 
and suffered any important and pressing avocation to 
delay the tribute of daily tears. She then yielded to 
less occasions.; sometimes forgot what she was indeed 
afraid to remember, and, at last, wholly released her- 
self from the duty of periodical affliction. 

Her real love of Pekuah was yet not diminished. 
A thousand occurrences brought her back to memory, 
and a thousand wants, which nothing but the confi- 
dence of friendship can supply, made her frequently 
regretted. She therefore solicited Imlac never to 
desist from inquiry, and to leave no art of intelligence 
untried, that at least she might have the comfort of 
knowing, that she did not suffer by negligence or 
sluggishness. " Yet what," said she, " is to be expect- 
ed from our pursuit of happiness, when we find the state 
of life to be such, that happiness itself is the cause of 
misery ? Why should we endeavour to attain that of 
which the possession cannot be secured ? I shall 
henceforward fear to yield my heart to excellence, 
however bright, or to fondness, however tender, lest I 
should lose again what I have lost* in Pekuah." 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

The Princess hears News of Pekuah. 
In seven months, one of the messengers, who had 
been sent away upon the day when the promise was 
drawn from the princess, n turned, after many unsuc- 

8 .* 



90 RASSELAS. 

cessful rambles, from the borders of Nubia, with an 
account that Pekuah was in the hands of an Arab 
chief, who possessed a castle or fortress on the extremi- 
ty of Egypt. The Arab, whose revenue was plunder, 
was willing to restore her, with her two attendants, 
for two hundred ounces of gold. 

The price was no subject of debate. The princess 
was in ecstacies when she heard that her favourite 
was alive, and might so cheaply be ransomed. She 
could not think of delaying for a moment Pekuah's 
happiness or her own, but entreated her brother to 
send back the messenger with the sum required. 
Imlac being consulted, was not very confident of the 
veracity of the relater, and was still more doubtful of 
the Arab's faith, who might, if he were too liberally 
trusted, detain at once the money and the captives. 
He thought it dangerous to put themselves in the 
power of the Arab, by going into his district, and could 
not expect that the rover would so much expose him- 
self as to come into the lower country, where he might 
be seized by the forces of the Bassa. 

It is difficult to negotiate where neither will trust. 
But Imlac, after some deliberation, directed the messen- 
ger to propose that Pekuah should be conducted by ten 
horsemen to the Monastery of St. Antony, which is 
situated in the deserts of Upper Egypt, where she 
should be met by the same number, and her ransom 
should be paid. 

That no time might be lost, as they expected that 
the proposal would not be refused, they immediately 
began their journey to the Monastery ; and when they 
arrived, Imlac went forward with the former messen- 
ger to the Arab's fortress. Rasselas was desirous to go 
with them j but neither his sister nor Imlac would con- 
sent. The Arab, according to the custom of his nation, 
observed the laws of hospitality with great exactness 
to those who put themselves into his power, and, in a 
few days, brought Pekuah with her maids, by easy jour- 



RASSELAS. 91 

neys, to the place appointed, where, receiving the 
stipulated price, he restored her with great respect to 
liberty and her friends, and undertook to conduct them 
back towards Cairo' beyond all danger of robbery or 
violence. 

The princess and her favourite embraced each other 
with transport too violent to be expressed, and went 
out together to pour the tears of tenderness in secret, 
and exchange professions of kindness and gratitude. 
After a few hours they returned into the refectory of 
the convent, where, in the presence of the prior and 
his brethren, the prince required of Pekuah the his- 
tory of her adventures. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

The Adventures of the Lady Pekuah. 

" At what time, and in what manner, I was forced 
away," said Pekuah, "your servants have toid you. 
The suddenness of the event struck me with surprise, 
and I was at first rather stupified than agitated with 
any passion of either fear or sorrow. My confusion was 
increased by the speed and tumult of our flight, while 
we were followed by the Turks, who, as it seemed, 
soon despaired to overtake us, or were afraid of those 
whom they made a show of menacing. 

" When the Arabs saw themselves out of danger 
they slackened their course, and as I was less harassed 
by external violence, I began to feel more uneasiness 
in my mind. After some time we stopped near a 
spring shaded with trees in a pleasant meadow, where 
we wore set upon the ground, and offered such refresh- 
ments as our masters were partaking. I was suffered 
to sit with my maids apart from the rest, and none at- 
tempted to comfort or insult us. Here I first began to 
feel the full weight of my misery. The girls sot 



92 RASSELAS. 

weeping in silence, and from time to time looked on 
me for succour. I knew not to what condition wc 
were doomed, nor could conjecture where would be 
the place of our captivity, or whence to draw any 
hope of deliverance. I was in the hands of robbers 
and savages, and had no reason to suppose that their 
pity was more than their justice, or that they would 
forbear the gratification of any ardour of desire, or 
caprice of cruelty. I, however, kissed my maids, and 
endeavoured to pacify them by remarking, that we 
were yet treated with decency, and that, since we 
were now carried beyond pursuit, there was no danger 
of violence to our lives. 

" When we were to be set again on horseback, my 
maids clung round me, and refused to be parted, but I 
commanded them not to irritate those who had us in 
their power. We travelled the remaining part of the 
day through an unfrequented and pathless country, 
and came by moon-light to the side of a hill, where the 
rest of the troop was stationed. Their tents were 
pitched, and their fires kindled, and our chief was 
welcomed as a man much beloved by his dependants. 
" We were received into a large tent, where we 
found women who had attended their husbands in the 
expedition. They set before us the supper which they 
had provided, and I eat it rather to encourage my 
maids, than to comply with any appetite of my own. 
When the meat was taken away, they spread the 
carpets for repose. I was weary, and hoped to find in 
sleep that remission of distress which nature seldom 
denies. Ordering myself therefore to be undrest, I 
observed that the women looked very earnestly upon 
me, not expecting, I suppose, to see me so submissively 
attended. When my upper vest was taken off, they 
were apparently struck with the splendour of my 
clothes, and one of them timorously laid her hand upon 
the embroidery. She then went out, and in a short, 
time came back with another woman, who seemed to 



RASSELAS. 93 

be of higher rank, and greater authority. She did, at 
her entrance, the usual ace of reverence, and taking 
me by the hand, placed me in a smaller tent, spread 
with finer carpets, where I spent the night quietly 
with my maids. 

" In the morning, as I was sitting on the grass, the 
chief of the troop came towards me. I rose up to 
receive him, and he bowed with great respect. " Illus- 
trious lady," said he, " my fortune is better than I had 
presumed to hope ; I am told by my women, that I have 
a princess in my camp." " Sir," answered I, " your 
women have deceived themselves and you ; I am not 
a princess, but an unhappy stranger, who intended soon 
to have left this country, in which I am now to be 
imprisoned for ever." " Whoever, or whencesoever 
you are," returned the Arab, " your dress, and that of 
your servants, show your rank to be high, and your 
wealth to be great. Why should you, who can so 
easily procure your ransom, think yourself in danger 
of perpetual captivity ? The purpose of my incursions 
is to increase my riches, or, more properly, to gather 
tribute. The sons of Ishmael are the natural and he- 
reditary lords of this part of the continent, which 
is usurped by late invaders, and low-born tyrants, from 
whom we are compelled to take by the sword what is 
denied to justice. The violence of war admits no 
distinction : the lance that is lifted at guilt and power, 
will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness." 

" How little," said I, " did I expect that yesterday 
it should have fallen upon me !" 

" Misfortunes," answered the Arab, tl should always 
be expected. If the eye of hostility could learn reve- 
rence or pity, excellence like yours had been exempt 
from injury. But the angels of affliction spread their 
:oils alike for the virtuous and the wicked, for the 
mighty and the mean. Do not be disconsolate : I am 
:iot one of the lawless and cruel rovers of the desert ; 
1 know the rules of civil life ; I will fix your ransom, give 



94 RASSELAS. 

a passport to your messenger, and perform my stipula- 
tion with nice punctuality." 

" You will easily believe that I was pleased with his 
courtesy ; and finding that his predominant passion 
was desire of money, I began now to think my danger 
less, for I knew that no sum would be thought too 
great for the release of Pekuah. I told him, that he 
should have no reason to charge me with ingratitude, 
if I was used with kindness, and that any ransom 
which could be expected for a maid of common rank, 
would be paid ; but that he must not persist to rate 
me as a princess. He said he would consider what he 
should demand, and then smiling, bowed and retired. 

u Soon after the women came about me, each con- 
tending to be more officious than the other, and my 
maids themselves were served with reverence. We 
travelled onward by short journeys. On the fourth 
day the chief told me, that my ransom must be two 
hundred ounces of gold ; which I not only promised 
him, but told him, that I would add fifty more, if I 
and my maids were honourably treated. 

" I never knew the power of gold before. From 
that time I was the leader o.f the troop. The march 
of every day was longer or shorter as I commanded, 
and the tents were pitched where I chose to rest. Wo 
now had camels and other conveniences for travel, my 
own women were always at my side, and I amused 
myself with observing the manners of the vagrant 
nations, and with viewing remains of ancient edifices, 
with which these deserted countries appear to have 
been, in some distant age, lavishly embellished. 

" The chief of the band was a man far from illite- 
rate: he was able to travel by the stars or the com- 
pass, and had marked, in his erratick expeditions, such 
places as are most worthy the notice of a passenger. 
He observed to me, that buildings are always best pre- 
served in places little frequented, and difficult of 
access ; for, when once a country declines from its 



RASSELAS. 95 

primitive splendour, the more inhabitants arc left the 
quicker ruin will be made. Walls supply stones more 
easily than quarries, and palaces and temples will bo 
demolished, to make stables of granite, and cottages 
of porphyry." 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

The Adventures of Pekuah continued. 
" We wandered about in this manner for some 
weeks, whether, as our chief pretended, for my gra- 
tification, or, as I rather suspected, for some conve- 
nience of his own. I endeavoured to appear contented 
where sullenness and resentment would have been of 
no use, and that endeavour conduced much to the 
calmness of my mind ; but my heart was always with 
Nekayah, and the troubles of the night much over- 
balanced the amusements of the day. My women, 
who threw all their cares upon their mistress, set their 
minds at ease from the time when they saw me treated 
with respect, and gave themselves up to the incidental 
alleviations of our fatigue without solitude or sorrow. 
I was pleased with their pleasure, and animated with 
their confidence. My condition had lost much of its 
terrour, since I found that the Arab ranged the country 
merely to get riches. Avarice is a uniform and 
tractable vice : other intellectual distempers are diffe- 
rent in different constitutions of mind ; that which 
sooths the pride of one will offend the pride of ano- 
ther ; but to the favour of the covetous there is a 
ready way — bring money, and nothing is denied. 

u At last we came to the dwelling of our chief, a 
strong and spacious house built with stone in an island 
of the Nile, which lies, as 1 was told, under the tropic. 
" Lady," said the Arab, " you shall rest after your 
journey a few weeks in this place, where you are to 



96 RASSELAS. 

consider yourself as sovereign. My occupation is 
war : I have therefore chosen this obscure residence, 
from which I can issue unexpected, and to which I can 
retire unpursued. You may now repose in security : 
here are few pleasures, but here is no danger." He 
then led me into the inner apartments, and, seating 
me on the richest couch, bowed to the ground. His 
women, who considered me as a rival, looked on me 
with malignity ; but being soon informed that I was a 
great lady detained only for my ransom, they began to 
vie with each other in obsequiousness and reverence. 

" Being again comforted with new assurances of 
speedy liberty, I was for some days diverted from im- 
patience by the novelty of the place. The turrets 
overlooked the country to a great distance, and afford- 
ed a view of many windings of the stream. In the 
day I wandered from one place to another, as the 
course of the sun varied the splendour of the prospect, 
and saw many things which I had never seen before. 
The crocodiles and river-horses are common in this 
unpeopled region, and I often looked upon them with 
terrour, though I knew that they could not hurt me. 
For some time I expected to see mermaids and tritons, 
which, as Imlac has told me, the European travellers 
have stationed in the Nile ; but no such beings ever 
appeared, and the Arab, when I inquired after them, 
laughed at my credulity. 

" At night the Arab always attended me to a tower 
set apart for celestial observations, where he endea- 
voured to teach me the names and courses of the stars. 
I had no great inclination to this study, but an appear- 
ance of attention was necessary to please my instruct- 
or, who valued himself for his skill ; and, in a little 
while, I found some employment requisite to beguile 
the tediousness of time, which was to be passed always 
amidst the same objects. I was weary of looking in 
the morning on things from which I had turned away 
weary in the evening : I therefore was at last willing 



RASSELAS. 97 

to observe the stars rather than do nothing/ but could 
not always compose my thoughts, and was very often 
thinking on Nekayah, when others imagined me con- 
templating the sky. Soon after the Arab went upon 
another expedition, and the,n my only pleasure was to 
talk with my maids about the accident by which we 
were carried away, and the happiness that we should 
all enjoy at the end of our captivity." 

" There were women in your Arab's fortress," said 
the princess, " Why did you not make them your com- 
panions, enjoy their conversation, and partake their 
diversions ? In a place where they found business or 
amusement, why should you alone sit corroded with 
idle melancholy ? or why could not you bear, for a 
few months, that condition to which they were con- 
demned for life ?" 

" The diversions of the women," answered Pekuah, 
" were only childish play, by which the mind, accus- 
tomed to stronger operations, could not be kept busy. 
I could do all which they delighted in doing by powers 
merely sensitive, while my intellectual faculties were 
flown to Cairo. They ran from room to room, as a 
bird hops from wire to wire in his cage. They danced 
for the sake of motion, as lambs frisk in a meadow. 
One sometimes pretended to be hurt, that the rest 
might be alarmed : or hid herself, that another might 
seek her. Part of their time passed in watching the 
progress of light bodies that floated on the river, and 
part in marking the various forms into which clouds 
broke in the sky. 

" Their business was only needlework, in which I 
and rny maids sometimes helped them : but you know 
that the mind will easily straggle from the fingers ; 
nor will you suspect that captivity and absence from 
Nekayah could receive solace from silken flowers. 

" Nor was much satisfaction to be hoped from their 
conversation : for of what could they be expected to 
talk ? They had seen nothing ; for they had lived from 
9 



98 RASSELAS. 

early youth in that narrow spot. Of what they had 
not seen they could have no knowledge, for they could 
not read. They had no ideas but of the few things 
that were within their view, and had hardly names for 
any thing but their clothes, and their food. As I bore 
a superiour character, I was often called to terminate 
their quarrels, which I decided as equitably as I could. 
If it could have amused me to hear the complaints of 
each against the rest, I might have been often detain- 
ed by long stories ; but the motives of their animosity 
were so small that I could not listen without interrupt- 
ing the tale." 

" How," said Rasselas, " can the Arab, whom you 
represented as a man of more than common accom- 
plishments, take any pleasure in his seraglio, when it 
is filled only with women like these ? Are they ex- 
quisitely beautiful ?" 

" They do not," said Pekuah, " want that unaffect- 
ing and ignoble beauty which may subsist without 
sprightliness or sublimity, without energy of thought or 
dignity of virtue. But to a man like the Arab, such 
beauty was only a flower casually plucked and care- 
lessly thrown away. Whatever pleasures he might find 
among them, they were not those of friendship or 
society. When they were playing about him, he look- 
ed on them with inattentive superiority : when they 
vied for his regard, he sometimes turned away disgust- 
ed. As they had no knowledge, their talk could take 
nothing from the tediousness of life ; as they had no 
choice, their fondness, or appearance of fondness, ex- 
cited in him neither pride nor gratitude : he was not 
exalted in his own esteem by the smiles of a woman 
who saw no other man, nor was much obliged by that 
regard, of which he could never know the sincerity, 
and which he might often perceive to be exerted, not 
so much to delight him as to pain a rival. That 
which he gave, and they received, as love, was only a 
careless distribution of superfluous time, such love as 



RASSELAS. 99 

man can bestow upon that which he despises, such as 
has neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow." 

" You have reason, lady, to think yourself happy," 
said Imlac, " that you have been thus easily dismissed. 
How could a mind, hungry for knowledge, be willing, 
in an intellectual famine, to lose such a banquet as 
Pekuah's conversation ?" 

" I am inclined to believe," answered Pekuah, " that 
he was for some time in suspense ; for, notwithstand- 
ing his promise, whenever I proposed to despatch a 
messenger to Cairo, he found some excuse for delay. 
While I was detained in his house he made many in- 
cursions into the neighbouring countries, and, perhaps> 
he would have refused to discharge me, had his plun- 
der been equal to his wishes. He returned always 
courteous, related his adventures, delighted to hear 
my observations, and endeavoured to advance my ac- 
quaintance with the stars. When I importuned him 
to send away my letters, he soothed me with profes- 
sions of honour and sincerity ; and, when I could be no 
longer decently denied, put his troop again in motion, 
and left me to govern in his absence. I was much 
afflicted by this studied procrastination, and was some- 
times afraid that I should be forgotten; that you 
would leave Cairo, and I must end my days in an 
island of the Nile. 

" I grew at last hopeless and dejected, and cared so 
little to entertain him, that he for a while more fre- 
quently talked with my maids. That he should fall 
in love with them, or with me, might have been 
equally fatal, and I was not much pleased with the 
growing friendship. My anxiety was not long ; for, 
as I recovered some degree of cheerfulness, he return- 
ed to me, and I could not forbear to despise my 
former uneasiness. 

" He still delayed to send for my ransom, and 
would, perhaps, never have determined, had not your 
agent found his way to him. The gold, which he 



100 RASSELAS. 

would not fetch, he could not reject when it was offer- 
ed. He hastened to prepare for our journey hither, 
like a man delivered from the pain of an intestine 
conflict. I took leave of my companions in the house, 
who dismissed me with cold indifference." 

Nekayah having heard her favourite's relation, rose 
and embraced her, and Rasselas gave her a hundred 
ounces of gold, which she presented to the Arab for 
the fifty that were promised. 



CHAPTER XL. 

The History of a Man of Learning. 

They returned to Cairo, and were so well pleased 
at finding themselves together, that none of them 
went much abroad. The prince began to love learn- 
ing, and one day declared to Imlac, that he intended 
to devote himself to science, and pass the rest of his 
days in literary solitude. 

" Before you make your final choice," answered 
Imlac, " you ought to examine its hazards, and con- 
verse with some of those who are grown old in the 
company of themselves. I have just left the observa- 
tory of one of the most learned astronomers in the 
world, who has spent forty }^ears in unwearied atten- 
tion to the motions and appearances of the celestial 
bodies, and has drawn out his soul in endless calcula- 
tions. He admits a few friends once a month, to hear 
his deductions and enjoy his discoveries. I was intro- 
duced as a man of knowledge worthy of his notice. 
Men of various ideas, and fluent conversation, are com- 
monly welcome to those whose thoughts have been 
long fixed upon a single point, and who find the 
images of other things stealing away. I delighted 
him with my remarks, he smiled at the narrative of 



RASSELAS. 101 

my travels, and was glad to forget the constellations, 
and descend for a moment into the lower world. 

" On the next day of vacation I renewed my visit, 
and was so fortunate as to please him again. He re- 
laxed from that time the severity of his rule, and per- 
mitted me to enter at my own 'choice. I found him 
always busy, and always glad to be relieved. As each 
knew much which the other was desirous of learning, 
we exchanged our notions with great delight. I per- 
ceived that I had every day more of his confidence, 
and always found new cause of admiration in the pro- 
fundity of his mind. His comprehension is vast, his 
memory capacious and retentive, his discourse is me- 
thodical, and his expression clear. 

" His integrity and benevolence are equal to his 
learning. His deepest researches and most favourite 
studies are willingly interrupted for any opportunity 
of doing good by his counsel or his riches. To his 
closest retreat, at his most busy moments, all are ad- 
mitted that want his assistance : " For though I ex- 
clude idleness and pleasure, I will never," says he, 
" bar my doors against charity. To man is permitted 
the contemplation of the skies, but the practice of 
virtue is commanded." 

" Surely," said the princess, u this man is happy.' 

" I visited him," said Imlac, " with more and more 
frequency, and was every time more enamoured of his 
conversation : He was sublime without haughtiness, 
courteous without formality, and communicative with- 
out ostentation. I was at first, great princess, of your 
opinion, thought him the happiest of mankind, and 
often congratulated him on the blessing that he enjoy- 
ed. He seemed to hear nothing with indifference but 
the praises of his condition, to which he always re- 
turned a general answer, and diverted the conversa- 
tion to some other topick. 

" Amidst this willingness to be pleased and labour 
to please, I had quickly reason to imagine that, some 
9* 



102 RASSELAS. 

painful sentiment pressed upon his mind. He often 
looked up earnestly towards the sun, and let his voice 
fall in the midst of his discourse. He would some- 
times, when we were alone, gaze upon me in silence, 
with the air of a man who longed to speak what he 
was yet resolved to suppress. He would often send 
for me with vehement injunctions of haste, though, 
when I came to him, he had nothing extraordinary to 
say. And sometimes, when I was leaving him, would 
call me back, pause a few moments, and then dismiss 
me." 



CHAPTER XLI. 

The Astronomer discovers the Cause of his 
Uneasiness. 

" At last the time came when the secret burst his 
reserve. We were sitting together last night in the 
turret of his house, watching the emersion of a sa- 
tellite of Jupiter. A sudden tempest clouded the sky, 
and disappointed our observation. We sat awhile 
silent in the dark, and then he addressed himself to me 
in these words : Imlac, I have long considered thy 
friendship as the greatest blessing of my life. Integri- 
ty without knowledge is weak and useless, and know- 
ledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. I 
have found in thee all the qualities requisite for trust, 
benevolence, experience, and fortitude. I have long 
discharged an office which I must soon quit at the 
call of nature, and shall rejoice in the hour of imbecility 
and pain to devolve it upon thee. 

" I thought myself honoured by this testimony, and 
protested, that whatever could conduce to his happi- 
ness would add likewise to mine." 

" Hear, Imlac, what thou wilt not without difficulty 
credit. I have possessed for five years the regulation 



RASSELAS. 10a 

of the weather, and the distribution of the seasons : 
the sun has listened to my dictates, and passed from tro- 
pick to tropick by my direction ; the clouds, at my call, 
have poured their waters, and the Nile has overflowed 
at my command ; I have restrained the rage of the 
dog-star, and mitigated the fervours of the crab. The 
winds alone, of all the elemental powers, have hither- 
to refused my authority, and multitudes have perished 
by equinoctial tempests, which I found myself unable 
to prohibit or restrain. I have administered this great 
office with exact justice, and made to the different 
nations of the earth an impartial dividend of rain and 
sunshine. What must have been the misery of half the 
globe, if I had limited the clouds to particular regions, 
or confined the sun to either side of the equator ?" 



CHAPTER XLII. 

The Opinion of the Astronomer is explained and 
justified. 
I suppose he discovered in me, through the ob- 
scurity of the room, some tokens of amazement and 
doubt, for, after a short pause, he proceeded thus : 

" Not to be easily credited will neither surprise nor 
offend me ; for I am, probably, the first of human be- 
ings to whom this trust has been imparted. Nor do I 
know whether to deem this distinction a reward or 
punishment : since I have possessed it I have been far 
less happy than before, and nothing but the conscious- 
ness of good intention could have enabled me to sup- 
port the weariness of unremitted vigilance." 

" How long, sir," said I, " has this great office been 
in your hands ?" 

" About ten years ago," said he, " my daily obser- 
vations of the changes of the sky led me to consider, 
whether, if I had the power of the seasons, I could 



104 RASSELAS. 

confer greater plenty upon the inhabitants of the 
earth. This contemplation fastened on my mind, and I 
sat days and nights in imaginary dominion, pouring 
upon this country and that the showers of fertility, 
and seconding every fall of rain with a due proportion 
of sunshine. I had yet only the will to do good, and 
did not imagine that I should ever have the power. 

" One day, as I was looking on the fields withering 
with heat, I felt in my mind a sudden wish that I could 
send rain on the southern mountains, and raise the 
Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagination 
I commanded rain to fall, and by comparing the time 
of my command with that of the inundation, I found 
that the clouds had listened to my lips." 

" Might not some other cause," said I, " produce 
this concurrence ? the Nile does not always rise on 
the same day." 

" Do not believe," said he with impatience, " that 
such objections could escape me : I reasoned long 
against my own conviction, and laboured against 
truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes sus- 
pected myself of madness, and should not have dared to 
impart this secret but to a man like you, capable of 
distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible, and 
the incredible from the false." 

" Why, sir," said I, " do you call that incredible, 
which you know, or think you know to be true ?" 

" Because," said he, "I cannot prove it by any ex- 
ternal evidence ; and I know too well the laws of de- 
monstration to think that my conviction ought to in- 
fluence another, who cannot, like me, be conscious of 
its force ; I therefore shall not attempt to gain credit 
by disputation. It is sufficient that I feel this power, 
that I have long possessed, and every day exerted it. 
But the life of man is short, the infirmities of ago in- 
crease upon me, and the time will soon come, when 
the regulator of the year must mingle with the dust. 
The care of appointing a successor has long disturbed 



RASSELAS. 105 

me ; the night and the day have been spent in com- 
parisons of all the characters which have come to my 
knowledge, and I have yet found none so worthy as 
thyself." 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

The Astronomer leaves Imlac his Directions. 

" Hear, therefore, what I shall impart, with atten- 
tion, such as the welfare of a world requires. If the 
task of a king be considered as difficult, who has the care 
only of a few millions, to whom he cannot do much 
good or harm, what must be the anxiety of him, on 
whom depends the action of the elements, and the 
great gifts of light and heat ! — Hear me therefore with 
attention. 

" I have diligently considered the position of the 
earth and sun, and formed innumerable schemes in 
which I changed their situation. I have sometimes 
turned aside the axis of the earth, and sometimes 
varied the ecliptick of the sun : but I have found it 
impossible to make a disposition by which the world 
may be advantaged ; what one region gains, another 
loses by an imaginable alteration, even without con- 
sidering the distant parts of the solar system with 
which we are unacquainted. Do not, therefore, in thy 
administration of the year, indulge thy pride by inno- 
vation ; do not please thyself with thinking that thou 
eansj make thyself renowned to all future ages, by 
disordering the seasons. The memory of mischief is 
no desirable fame. Much less will it become thee to 
let kindness or interest prevail. Never rob other 
countries of rain to pour it on thine own. For us the 
Nile is sufficient." 

" I promised, that when I possessed the power, I 
would use it with inflexible integrity ; and he dis- 



10G RASSELAS. 

missed me pressing my hand. " My heart," said he, 
" will be now at rest, and my benevolence will no 
more destroy my quiet ; I have found a man of wisdom 
and virtue, to whom I can cheerfully bequeath the 
inheritance of the sun." 

The prince heard this narration with very serious 
regard ; but the princess smiled, and Pekuah convulsed 
herself with laughter. " Ladies," said Tmlac, " to 
mock the heaviest of human afflictions is neither 
charitable nor wise. Few can attain this man's know- 
ledge, and few practise his virtues ; but all may surfer 
his calamity. Of the uncertainties of our present state, 
the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain con- 
tinuance of reason." 

The princess was recollected, and the favourite was 
abashed. Rasselas, more deeply affected, inquired of 
Imlac, whether he thought such maladies of the mind 
frequent, and how they were contracted ? 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

The dangerous Prevalence of Imagination. 
" Disorders of intellect," answered Imlac, " happen 
much more often than superficial observers will easily 
believe. Perhaps, if we speak with rigorous exactness, 
no human mind is in its right state. There is no man 
whose imagination does not sometimes predominate 
over his reason, who can regulate his attention wholly 
by his will, and whose ideas will come and go at his 
command. No man will be found in whose mind airy 
notions do not sometimes tyrannise, and force him to 
hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability. 
All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity ; 
but while this power is such as we can control and 
repress, it is not visible to others, nor considered as 
any depravation of the mental faculties : it is not 
pronounced madness but when it becomes ungoverna- 
ble, and apparently influences speech or action. 



RASSELAS. 107 

<c To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagina- 
tion out upon the wing, is often the sport of those who 
delight too much in silent speculation. When we are 
alone we are not always busy ; the labour of excogita- 
tion is too violent to last long ; the ardour of inquiry 
will sometimes give way to idleness or satiety. He 
who has nothing external that can divert him, must 
find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive 
himself what he is not ; for who is pleased with what 
he is ? He then expatiates in boundless futurity, and 
culls from all imaginable conditions that which for the 
present moment he should most desire, amuses his de- 
sires with impossible enjoyments, and confers upon his 
pride unattainable dominion. The mind dances from 
scene to scene, unites all pleasures in all combinations, 
and riots in delights, which nature and fortune, with all 
their bounty, cannot bestow. 

" In time, some particular train of ideas fixes the 
attention ; all other intellectual gratifications are re- 
jected ; the mind, in weariness or leisure, recurs con- 
stantly to the favourite conception, and feasts on the 
luscious falsehood, whenever she is offended with the 
bitterness of truth. By degrees the reign of fancy is 
confirmed ; she grows first imperious, and in time 
despotic : Then fictions begin to operate as realities, 
false opinions fasten upon the mind, and life passes in 
dreams of rapture or of anguish. 

" This, sir, is one of the dangers of solitude, which 
the hermit has confessed not always to promote good- 
ness, and the astronomer's misery has proved to be not 
always propitious to wisdom." 

" I will no more," said the favourite, " imagine my- 
self the queen of Abyssinia: I have often spent the 
hours, which the princess gave to my own disposal, in 
adjusting ceremonies and regulating the court : 1 have 
repressed the pride of the powerful, and granted the 
petitions of the poor ; I have built new palaces in 
more happy situations, planted groves upon the tops 



108 RASSELAS. 

of mountains, and have exulted in the beneficence of 
royalty, till, when the princess entered, I had almost 
forgotten to bow down before her." 

" And I," said the princess, " will not allow myself 
any more to play the shepherdess in my waking dreams. 
I have often soothed my thoughts with the quiet and 
innocence of pastoral employments, till I have in my 
chamber heard the winds whistle, and the sheep bleat : 
sometimes freed the lamb entangled in the thicket, 
and sometimes with my crook encountered the wolf. 
I have a dress like that of the village maids, which I 
put on to help my imagination, and a pipe on which I 
play softly, and suppose myself followed by my flocks." 

" I will confess," said the prince, " an indulgence of 
fantastick delight more dangerous than yours. I have 
frequently endeavoured to image the possibility of a 
perfect government, by which all wrong should be re- 
strained, all vice reformed, and all the subjects preserved 
in tranquillity and innocence. This thought produced 
innumerable schemes of reformation, and dictated many 
useful regulations and salutary edicts. This has been 
the sport, and sometimes the labour, of my solitude ; 
and I start when I think with how little anguish 1 
once supposed the death of my father and my brothers." 

" Such," says Imlac, " are the effects of visionary 
schemes : when we first form them we know them to 
be absurd, but familiarize them by degrees, and in time 
lose sight of their folly." 



CHAPTER XLV. 

Tkcxj discourse with an old Man. 
The evening was now far past, and they rose to 
return home. As they walked along the bank of the 
Nile, delighted with the beams of the moon quivering 
on the water, they saw at a small distance an old man, 
whom the prince had often heard in the assembly of the 
sages. " Yonder." said he, " is one whose years have 



RASSELAS. 100 

calmed his passions, but not clouded his reason : let us 
close the disquisitions of the night, by inquiring what 
are his sentiments of his own state, that we may know 
whether youth alone is to struggle with vexation, and 
whether any better hope remains for the latter part of 
life." 

Here the sage approached and saluted them. They 
invited him to join their walk, and prattled a while, as 
acquaintance that had unexpectedly met one another. 
The old man was cheerful and talkative, and the way 
seemed short in his company. He was pleased to find 
himself not disregarded, accompanied them to their 
house, and, at the prince's request, entered with them. 
They placed him in the seat of honour, and set wine 
and conserves before him. 

" Sir," said the princess, " an evening walk must 
give to a man of learning, like you, pleasures which 
ignorance and youth can hardly conceive. You know 
the qualities and the causes of all that you behold, the 
laws by which the river flows, the periods in which 
the planets perform their revolutions : Every thing 
must supply your contemplation, and renew the con- 
sciousness of your own dignity." 

" Lady," answered he, " let the gay and the vigor- 
ous expect pleasure in their excursions ; it is enough 
that age can obtain ease. To me, the world has lost 
its novelty : I look round and see what I remember to 
have seen in happier days. I rest against a tree, and 
consider, that in the same shade I once disputed upon 
the annual overflow of the Nile with a friend who is 
now silent in the grave. I cast my eyes upwards, fix 
them on the changing moon, and think with pain on 
the vicissitudes of life. I have ceased to take much 
delight in physical truth ; for what have I to do with 
those things which 1 am soon to leave ?" 

<; You may at least recreate yourself," said Imlae, 
'• with the recollection of an honourable and useful life, 
and enjoy the praise which all agree to give you." 
10 



110 RASSELAS. 

" Praise," said the sage, with a sigh, " is to an old 
man an empty sound. I have neither mother to be 
delighted with the reputation of her son, nor wife to 
partake the honours of her husband : I have outlived 
my friends and my rivals. Nothing is now of much 
importance ; for I cannot extend my interest beyond 
myself. Youth is delighted with applause, because it 
is considered as the earnest of some future good, and 
because the prospect of life is far extended ; but to me, 
who am now declining to decrepitude, there is little to 
be feared from the malevolence of men, and yet less 
to be hoped from their affection or esteem. Something 
they may yet take away, but they can give me nothing. 
Riches would now be useless, and high employment 
would be pain. My retrospect of life recalls to my 
view many opportunities of good neglected, much time 
squandered upon trifles, and more lost in idleness, and 
vacancy. I leave many great designs unattempted, 
and many great attempts unfinished. My mind is bur- 
dened with no heavy crime, and therefore I compose 
myself to tranquillity ; endeavour to abstract my 
thoughts from hopes and cares, which, though reason 
knows them to be vain, still try to keep their old pos- 
session of the heart ; expect, with serene humility, that 
hour which nature cannot long delay ; and hope to 
possess, in a better state, that happiness which here I 
could not find, and that virtue which here I have not 
attained." 

He rose and went away, leaving his audience not 
much elated with the hope of long life. The prince 
consoled himself with remarking, that it was not rea- 
sonable to be disappointed by this account ; for age had 
never been considered as the season of felicity ; and 
if it was possible to be easy in decline and weakness, 
it was likely that the days of vigour and alacrity 
might be happy : that the noon of life might be bright, 
if the evening could be calm. 

The princess suspected that age was querulous and 



RASSELAS. Ill 

malignant, and delighted to repress the expectations 
of those who had newly entered the world. She had 
seen the possessors of estates look with envy on their 
heirs, and known many who enjoyed pleasure no 
longer than they can confine it to themselves. 

Pekuah conjectured, that the man was older than he 
appeared, and was willing to impute his complaints to 
delirious dejection ; or else supposed that he had been 
unfortunate, and was therefore discontented : " For 
nothing," said she, " is more common, than to call our 
own condition the condition of life." 

lmlac, who had no desire to see them depressed, 
smiled at the comforts which they could so readily 
procure to themselves, and remembered, that, at tho 
same age, he was equally confident of unmingled 
prosperity, and equally fertile of consolatory expedi- 
ents. He forbore to force upon them unwelcome 
knowledge, which time itself would too soon impress. 
The princess and her lady retired : the madness of the 
astronomer hung upon their minds, and they desired 
lmlac to enter upon his office, and delay next morning 
the rising of the sun. 



CHAPTER XL VI. 

The Princess and Pekuah visit the Astronomer. 

The Princess and Pekuah having talked in private 
of Imlac's astronomer, thought his character at once 
so amiable and so strange, that they could not bo 
satisfied without a nearer knowledge ; and lmlac was 
requested to find the means of bringing them together. 

This was somewhat difficult ; the philosopher had 
never received any visits from women, though he lived 
in a city that had in it many Europeans, who followed 
the manners cf their own countries, and many from 
other parts of the world that lived there with Europe- 
an liberty. The ladies would not be refused, and 



112 RASSELAS. 

several schemes were proposed for the accomplish- 
ment of their design. It was proposed to introduce 
them as strangers in distress, to whom the sage was 
always accessible ; but, after some deliberation, it ap- 
peared, that by this artifice no acquaintance could be 
formed, for their conversation would be short, and they 
could not decently importune him often. " This," 
said Rasselas, " is true : but I have yet a stronger 
objection against the misrepresentation of your state. 
1 have always considered it as treason against the 
great republick of human nature, to make any man's 
virtues the means of deceiving him, whether on great 
or little occasions. All imposture weakens confidence, 
and chills benevolence. When the sage finds that you 
are not what you seemed, he will feel the resentment 
natural to a man, who, conscious of great abilities, 
discovers that he has been tricked by understandings 
meaner than his own ; and perhaps, the distrust which 
he can never afterwards wholly lay aside, may stop 
the voice of counsel, and close the hand of charity; and 
where will you find the power of restoring his bene- 
factions to mankind, or his peace to himself?" 

To this no reply was attempted, and Imlac began to 
hope that their curiosity would subside ; but, next day, 
Pekuah told him, she had now found an honest pre- 
tence for a visit to the astronomer, for she would solicit 
permission to continue under him the studies in which 
she had been initiated by the Arab, and the princess 
might go with her, either as a fellow-student, or be- 
cause a woman could not decently come alone. " I 
am afraid," said Imlac, " that he will be soon weary 
of your company : Men advanced far in knowledge 
do not love to repeat the elements of their art ; and I 
am not certain that even of the elements, as he will 
deliver them connected with inferences, and mingled 
with reflections, you are a very capable auditress." 

" That," said Pekuah, " must be my care ; I ask of 
you only to take me thither. My knowledge is perhaps 



EASSELAS. 113 

more than you imagine it, and, by concurring always 
with his opinions, I shall make him think it greater 
than it is." 

The astronomer, in pursuance of this resolution, was 
told, that a foreign lady, travelling in search of know- 
ledge, had heard of his reputation, and was desirous 
to become his scholar. The uncommonness of the 
proposal raised at once his surprise and curiosity ; and 
when, after a short deliberation, he consented to admit 
her, he could not stay without impatience till the 
next day. 

The ladies dressed themselves magnificently, and 
were attended by Imlac to the astronomer, who was 
pleased to see himself approached with respect, by 
persons of so splendid an appearance. In the ex- 
change of the first civilities he was timorous and bash- 
ful ; but when the talk became regular, he recollected 
his powers, and justified the character which Imlac 
had given. Inquiring of Pekuah, what could have 
turned her inclination towards astronomy ? he received 
from her a history of her adventure at the Pyramid, 
and of the time passed in the Arab's island. She told 
her tale with ease and elegance, and her conversation 
took possession of his heart. The discourse was then 
turned to astronomy ; Pekuah displayed what she 
knew : he looked upon her as a prodigy of genius, and 
entreated her not to desist from a study which she had 
60 happily begun. 

They came again and again, and were every time 
more welcome than before. The sage endeavoured to 
amuse them, that they might prolong their visits, for 
he found his thoughts grow brighter in their company ; 
• the clouds of solicitude vanished by degrees, as he 
forced himself to entertain them, and he grieved when 
he was left at their departure to his old employment of 
regulating the seasons. 

The princess and her favourite had now watched 
his lips for several months, and could not catch a sin- 
10* 



114 RASSELAS. 

gle word from which they could judge whether he 
continued or not in the opinion of his preternatural 
commission. They often contrived to bring him to an 
open declaration ; but he easily eluded all their attacks, 
and on which side soever they pressed him, escaped 
from them to some other topick. 

As their familiarity increased, they invited him 
often to the house of Iinlao, where they distinguished 
him by extraordinary respect. He began gradually to 
delight in sublunary pleasures. He came early, and 
departed late ; laboured to recommend himself by 
assiduity and compliance ; excited their curiosity after 
new arts, that they might still want his assistance ; 
and when they made any excursion of pleasure or in- 
quiry, entreated to attend them. 

By long experience of his integrity and wisdom, the 
prince and his sister were convinced that he might be 
trusted without danger ; and lest he should draw any 
false hopes from the civilities which he received, dis- 
covered to him their condition, with the motives of 
their journey ; and required his opinion on the choice 
of life. 

" Of the various conditions which the world spreads 
before you, which you shall prefer," said the sage, " I 
am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I 
have chosen wrong. 1 have passed my time in study 
without experience ; in the attainment of sciences 
which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to 
mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense 
of all the common comforts of life : I have missed the 
endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy 
commerce of domestick tenderness. If I have obtained 
any prerogatives above other students, they have been 
accompanied with fear, disquiet, and scrupulosity ; but 
even of these prerogatives, whatever they were, 1 
have, since my thoughts have been diversified by more 
intercourse with the world, begun to question the 
reality. When T have been for a few davs lost in 



RASSELAS. lir. 

pleasing dissipation, I am always tempted to think 
that my inquiries have ended in errour, and that I have 
suffered much, and suffered it in vain.*' 

Imlac was delighted to find that the sage's under- 
standing was breaking through its mists, and resolved 
to detain him from the planets till he should forget his 
task of ruling them, and reason should recover its 
original influence. 

From this time the astronomer was received into 
familiar friendship, and partook of all their projects 
and pleasures : his respect kept him attentive, and 
the activity of llasselas did not leave much time 
unengaged. Something was always to be done ; 
the day was spent in making observations which fur- 
nished talk for the evening, and the evening was 
closed with a scheme for the morrow. 

The sage confessed to Imlac, that since he had 
mingled in the gay tumults of life, and divided his 
hours by a succession of amusements, he found the 
conviction of his authority over the skies fade gra- 
dually from his mind, and began to trust less to an 
opinion which he never could prove to others, and 
which he now found subject to variation, from causes 
in which reason had no part. " If I am accidentally 
left alone for a few hours," said he, " my inveterate 
persuasion rushes upon my soul, and my thoughts are 
chained down by some irresistible violence ; but they 
are soon disentangled by the prince's conversation, and 
instantaneously released at the entrance of Pekuah. 
I am like a man habitually afraid of spectres, who is 
set at ease by a lamp, and wonders at the dread which 
harassed him in the dark ; yet, if his lamp be extin- 
guished, feels again the terrours which he knows that 
when it is light he shall feel no more. But I am 
sometimes afraid lest I indulge my quiet by criminal 
negligence, and voluntarily forget the great charge 
with which I am intrusted. If I favour myself in 
a known errour, or am determined by my own ease in 



116 RASSELAS. 

a. doubtful question of this importance, how dreadful 

ib my crime !" 

"No disease of the imagination," answered Imlac, 
" is bo difficult of cure as that which is complicated 
with the dread of guilt : fancy and conscience then 
act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their 
places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished 
from the dictates of the other. If fancy presents 
images not moral or religious, the mind drives them 
away when they give it pain ; but when melancholick 
notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the 
faculties without opposition, because we are afraid to 
exclude or banish them. For this reason the supersti- 
tious are often melancholy, and the melancholy almost 
always superstitious. 

" But do not let the suggestions of timidity over- 
power your better reason : the danger of neglect can 
be but as the probability of the obligation, which, 
when you consider it with freedom, you find very little, 
and that little growing every day less. Open your 
heart to the influence of the light, which from time to 
time breaks in upon you : when scruples importune 
you, which you in your lucid moments know to be vain, 
do not stand to parley, but fly to business or to Pe- 
kuah, and keep this thought always prevalent, that 
you are only one atom of the mass of humanity, and 
have neither such virtue nor vice, as that you should 
be singled out for supernatural favours or afflictions." 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

The Prince enters and brings a new Topick. 
H All this," said the astronomer, " I have often* 
thought, but my reason has been so long subjugated 
by an uncontrollable and overwhelming idea, that it 
durst not confide in its own decisions. I now see how 
fatally I betrayed ray quiet, by suffering chimeras to 
prey upon me in secret ; but melancholy shrinks from 



RASSELAS. 117 

communication, and I never found a man before to 
whom I could impart my troubles, though I had been 
certain of relief. I rejoice to find my own sentiments 
confirmed by yours, who are not easily deceived, and 
can have no motive or purpose to deceive. I hope 
that time and variety will dissipate the gloom that has 
so long surrounded me, and the latter part of my days 
will be spent in peace." 

" Your learning and virtue," said Imlac, " may 
justly give you hopes." 

Rasselas then entered with the princess and Pekuah, 
and inquired, whether they had contrived any new 
diversion for the next day ? " Such," said Nekayah, 
" is the state of life, that none are happy but by the 
anticipation of change : the change itself is nothing ; 
when we have made it, the next wish is to change 
again. The world is not yet exhausted ; let me see 
something to-morrow which I never saw before." 

" Variety," said Rasselas, " is so necessary to con- 
tent, that even the happy valley disgusted me by the 
recurrence of its luxuries ; yet I could not forbear to 
reproach myself with impatience, when I saw the 
monks of St. Anthony support, without complaint, a 
life, not of uniform delight, but uniform hardship." 

" Those men," answered Imlac, " are less wretched 
in their silent convent than the Abyssinian princes in 
their prison of pleasure. Whatever is done by the 
monks is incited by an adequate and reasonable mo- 
tive. Their labour supplies them with necessaries ; it 
therefore cannot be omitted, and is certainly rewarded. 
Their devotion prepares them for another state, and 
reminds them of its approach, while it fits them for it. 
Their time is regularly distributed ; one duty succeeds 
another, so that they are not left open to the distrac- 
tion of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of 
listless inactivity. There is a certain task to be per- 
formed at an appropriated hour ; and their toils are 
cheerful, because they consider them as acta of piety, 



J 18 RASSELAS. 

by which they are always advancing towards endlesa 

felicity." 

" Do you think," said Nekayah, " that the monastick 
rule is a more holy and less imperfect state than any 
other ? May not he equally hope for future happiness 
who converses openly with mankind, who succours the 
distressed by his charity, instructs the ignorant by his 
learning, and contributes by his industry to the general 
system of life ; even though he should omit some of 
the mortifications which are practised in the cloister, 
and allow himself such harmless delights as his con- 
dition may place within his reach ?" 

" This," said Imlac, " is a question which has long 
divided the wise, and perplexed the good. I am afraid 
to decide on either part. He that lives well in the 
world, is better than he that lives well in a monastery. 
But, perhaps, every one is not able to stem the tempta- 
tions of publick life ; and if he cannot conquer, he may 
properly retreat. Some have little power to do good, and 
have likewise little strength to resist evil. Many are 
weary of their conflicts with adversity, and are willing 
to eject those passions which have long busied them in 
vain. And many are dismissed by age and diseases 
from the more laborious duties of society. In mo- 
nasteries, the weak and timorous may be happily 
sheltered, the weary may repose, and the penitent may 
meditate. Those retreats of prayer and contemplation 
have something so congenial to the mind of man, that, 
perhaps, there is scarcely one that does not propose to 
close his life in pious abstraction, with a few associ- 
ates serious as himself." 

" Such," said Pekuah, " has often been my wish, 
and I have heard the princess declare, that she should 
not willingly die in a crowd." 

" The liberty of using harmless pleasures," proceeded 
Imlac, " will not be disputed ; but it is still to be ex- 
amined what pleasures are harmless. The evil of any 
pleasure that Nekayah can image, is not in the act 



RASSELAS. 110 

itself, but in its consequences. Pleasure, in itself 
harmless, may becomo mischievous, by endearing to 
us a state which we know to be transient and probato- 
ry, and withdrawing our thoughts from that of which 
every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of 
which no length of time will bring us to the end. 
Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other 
use, but that it disengages us from the allurements of 
sense. In the state of future perfection to which we all 
aspire, there will be pleasure without danger, and 
security without restraint." 

The princess was silent, and Rasselas, turning to 
the astronomer, asked him, whether he could not delay 
her retreat, by showing her something which she had 
not seen before ? 

" Your curiosity," said the sage, " has been so gene- 
ral, and your pursuit of knowledge so vigorous, that 
novelties are not now very easily to be found : but 
what you can no longer procure from the living may 
be given by the dead. Among the wonders of this 
country are the Catacombs, or the ancient repositories 
in which the bodies of the earliest generations were 
lodged, and where, by the virtue of the gums which 
embalmed them, they yet remain without corruption." 

" I know not," said Rasselas, " what pleasure the 
sight of the Catacombs can afford ; but, since nothing 
else offers, I am resolved to view them, and shall place 
this with many other things which I have done, because 
I would do something." 

They hired a guard of horsemen, and the next day 
visited the Catacombs. When they were about to 
descend into the sepulchral caves, " Pekuah," said the 
princess, * ; we are now again invading the habitations 
of the dead ; I know that you will stay behind ; let me 
find you safe when I return." " No, I will not be left," 
answered Pekuah, " 1 will go down between you and 
the prince." 

Thev then all descended, and roved with wonder 



120 RASSELAS. 

through the labyrinth of subterraneous passages, 

where the bodies were laid in rows on either side. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

Imlac discourses on the Nature of the Soul. 

" What reason," said the prince, " can be given, 
why the Egyptians should thus expensively preserve 
those carcasses which some nations consume with fire, 
others lay to mingle with the earth, and all agree to 
remove from their sight, as soon as decent rites can be 
performed ?" 

" The original of ancient customs," said Imlac, " is 
commonly unknown ; for the practice often continues 
when the cause has ceased ; and concerning supersti- 
tious ceremonies it is vain to conjecture ; for what 
reason did not dictate, reason cannot explain. I have 
long believed, that the practice of embalming arose 
only from tenderness to the remains of relations or 
friends ; and to this opinion I am more inclined, be- 
cause it seems impossible that this care should have 
been general : Had all the dead been embalmed, their 
repositories must in time have been more spacious than 
the dwellings of the living. I suppose only the rich 
or honourable were secured from corruption, and the 
rest left to the course of nature. 

" But it is commonly supposed, that the Egyptians 
believed the soul to live as long as the body continued 
undissolved, and therefore tried this method of eluding 
death." 

" Could the wise Egyptians," said Nekayah, " think 
so grossly of the soul ? If the soul could once survive 
its separation, what could it aftorwards receive or 
suffer from the body ?" 

" The Egyptians would doubtless think erroneous- 
ly," said the astronomer, " in the darkness of heathen- 
ism, and the first dawn of philosophy. The nature of 
the soul is still disputed amidst all our opportunities of 



RASSELAS. 121 

clearer knowledge : Some yet say that it may be ma- 
terial, who, nevertheless, believe it to bo immortal." 

" Some," answered Imlac, " have indeed said that 
the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that 
any man has thought it, who knew how to think ; for 
all the conclusions of reason enforce the immateriality 
of mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations 
of science, concur to prove the unconsciousness of 
matter. 

" It was never supposed that cogitation is inherent 
in matter, or that every particle is a thinking being. 
Yet, if any part of matter be devoid of thought, 
what part can we suppose to think ? Matter can differ 
from matter only in form, density, bulk, motion, and 
direction of motion : to which of these, however varied 
or combined, can consciousness be annexed ? To be 
round or square, to be solid or fluid, to be great or little, 
to be moved slowly or swiftly one way or another, are 
modes of material existence, all equally alien from 
the nature of cogitation. If matter be once without 
thought, it can only be made to think by some new 
modification, but all the modifications which it can 
admit are equally unconnected with cogitative pow- 
ers." 

" But the materialists," said the astronomer, " urge, 
that matter may have qualities with which we are un- 
acquainted." 

" He who will determine," returned Imlac, " against 
that which he knows, because there may be some- 
thing which he knows not ; he that can set hypotheti- 
cal possibility against acknowledged certainty, is not 
to be admitted among reasonable beings. All that we 
know of matter is, that matter is inert, senseless, and 
lifeless ; and if this conviction cannot be opposed but 
by referring us to something that we know not, we 
have all the evidence that human intellect can admit. 
If that which is known may be overruled by that 
11 



122 RASSELAS. 

which is unknown, no being, not omniscient, can 
arrive at certainty." 

" Yet let us not," said the astronomer, " too arro- 
gantly limit the Creator's power." 

" It is no limitation of omnipotence," replied the 
poet, " to suppose that one thing is not consistent with 
another, that the same proposition cannot be at once 
true and false, that the same number cannot be even 
and odd, that cogitation cannot be conferred on that 
which is created incapable of cogitation." 

" I know not," said Nekayah, " any great use of this 
question. Does that immateriality, which, in my 
opinion, you have sufficiently proved, necessarily in- 
clude eternal duration ?" 

" Of immateriality," said Imlac, " our ideas are 
negative, and therefore obscure. Immateriality seems 
to imply a natural power of perpetual duration, as a 
consequence of exemption from all causes of decay : 
whatever perishes is destroyed by the solution of its 
contexture, and separation of its parts ; nor can we 
conceive how that which has no parts, and there- 
fore admits no solution, can be naturally corrupted or 
impaired." 

" I know not," said Rasselas, " how to conceive any 
thing without extension ; what is extended must have 
parts, and you allow, that whatever has parts may be 
destroyed." 

" Consider your own conceptions," replied Imlac, 
" and the difficulty will be less. You will find sub- 
stance without extension. An ideal form is no less 
real than material bulk ; yet an ideal form has no ex- 
tension. It is no less certain, when you think on a 
pyramid, that your mind possesses the idea of a py- 
ramid, than that the pyramid itself is standing. What 
space does the idea of a pyramid occupy more than 
the idea of a grain of corn ? or how can either idea 
suffer laceration ? As is the effect, such is the cause 



RASSELAS. 123 

as thought, such is the power that thinks ; a power 
impassive and indiscerptible." 

" But the Being," said Nekayah, " whom I fear to 
name, the Being which made the soul, can destroy it." 
" He, surely, can destroy it," answered Imlac, 
*' since, however imperishable, it receives from a su- 
per iour nature its power of duration. That it will 
not perish by any inherent cause of decay, or prin- 
ciple of corruption, may be shown by philosophy ; but 
philosophy can tell no more. That it will not be anni- 
hilated by him that made it, we must humbly learn 
from higher authority." 

The whole assembly stood awhile silent and collect- 
ed. " Let us return," said Rasselas, " from this scene 
of mortality. How gloomy would be these mansions 
of the dead to him who did not know that he should 
never die ; that what now acts shall continue its 
agency, and what now thinks shall think on for 
ever. Those that lie here stretched before us, the 
wise and the powerful of ancient times, warn us to re- 
member the shortness of our present state : they were, 
perhaps, snatched away while they were busy like us 
in the choice of life." 

" To me," said the princess, " the choice of life is 
become less important ; I hope hereafter to think only 
on the choice of eternity." 

They then hastened out of the caverns, and, under 
the protection of their guard, returned to Cairo. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

The Conclusion, in which nothing is concluded. 

It was now the time of the inundation of the Nile : 
a few days after their visit to the Catacombs, the 
river began to rise. 

They were confined to their house. The whole 
region being under water, gave them no invitation to 
any excursions, and. being well supplied with materials 



124 RASSELAS. 

for talk, they diverted themselves with comparisona 
of the different forms of life which they had observed, 
and with various schemes of happiness, which each of 
them had formed. 

Pekuah was never so much charmed with any 
place as the convent of St. Anthony, where the Arab 
restored her to the Princess, and wished only to fill it 
with pious maidens, and to be made prioress of the 
order : she was weary of expectation and disgust, and 
wouldgladly be fixed in some unvariable state. 

The Princess thought, that of all sublunary things 
knowledge was the best : she desired first to learn all 
sciences, and then proposed to found a college of learn- 
ed women, in which she would preside, that by convers- 
ing with the old, and educating the young, she might 
divide her time between the acquisition and com- 
munication of wisdom, and raise up for the next age 
models of prudence, and patterns of piety. 

The Prince desired a little kingdom, in which he 
might administer justice in his own person, and see 
"all the parts of government with his own eyes ; but he 
could never fix the limits or' his dominion, and was 
always "adding to the number of his subjects. 

Imlac and the astronomer were contented to be 
driven along the stream of life, without directing their 
course to any particular port. 

Of these wishes that they had formed, they well 
knew that none could be obtained^ They deliberated 
awhile what was to be done, and resolved, when the 
inundation should cease, to return to Abyssinia. 

THE END. 



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